shell-exec-mcp

MCP server for executing bash commands with background job support.

Use Cases

Run build commands: Execute npm run build, make, or other build tools and get the output.

File operations: Use find, grep, mv, rm, mkdir -p, stat etc. for file management.

Long-running tasks: Start servers or watch processes in background mode, check on them later.

System info: Run df -h, ps aux, env etc. to inspect the system state.

Setup

claude mcp add shell-exec-mcp -- npx -y shell-exec-mcp

Or with HTTP transport:

# Start the server
MCP_TRANSPORT=http PORT=3000 npx -y shell-exec-mcp

# Add to Claude
claude mcp add --transport http shell-exec-mcp http://localhost:3000/mcp

Tools

Tool	Description
execute	Run a bash command (with optional timeout and background mode)
get_job_status	Check status of a background job

Contributing

Pull requests are welcomed on GitHub! To get started:

1. Install Git and Node.js
2. Clone the repository
3. Install dependencies with npm install
4. Run npm run test to run tests
5. Build with npm run build

Releases

Versions follow the semantic versioning spec.

To release:

1. Use npm version <major | minor | patch> to bump the version
2. Run git push --follow-tags to push with tags
3. Wait for GitHub Actions to publish to the NPM registry.