Terminal MCP server for AI agents

The MCP Terminal Server provides secure command execution capabilities with controlled access and resource limits through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It enables executing shell commands with security features like command restrictions, timeouts, and output size limits.

Installation

Install with UV (Recommended)

The recommended installation method uses the UV package manager:

# Install UV if not already installed
pip install uv

# Install the MCP Terminal package
uv pip install mcp-terminal

Install with Standard pip

You can also install using standard pip:

pip install mcp-terminal

Usage

Basic Configuration

Configure the server by specifying allowed commands and resource limits:

mcp-terminal --allowed-commands "python,pip,git,ls,cd" --timeout-ms 30000 --max-output-size 1048576

Command Line Arguments

The server accepts the following command-line arguments:

--allowed-commands: Comma-separated list of permitted commands
--timeout-ms: Maximum execution time in milliseconds (default: 30000)
--max-output-size: Maximum output size in bytes (default: 1048576)

Using with Claude Desktop

To integrate with Claude Desktop:

Ensure UV is installed:
```
pip install uv
```

Edit your Claude Desktop configuration file (typically located at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "pip",
        "run",
        "mcp-terminal",
        "--allowed-commands",
        "python,pip,git,ls,cd",
        "--timeout-ms",
        "30000",
        "--max-output-size",
        "1048576"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Testing with MCP Inspector

You can verify your server implementation using the MCP Inspector tool:

# Install inspector
npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

# Test server configuration
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector python3 -m mcp_terminal.server --allowed-commands "python,pip,git,ls,cd"

Security Recommendations

Command Restrictions

Always specify a limited set of allowed commands in production environments:

mcp-terminal --allowed-commands "python,pip,ls,cd,cat"

Resource Limits

Set appropriate timeout and output size limits to prevent resource exhaustion:

mcp-terminal --timeout-ms 10000 --max-output-size 524288

Best Practices

Use the most restrictive command whitelist possible
Monitor command execution logs
Run the server with minimal system privileges
Regularly update the package to receive security fixes

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "terminal" '{"command":"uv","args":["pip","run","mcp-terminal","--allowed-commands","python,pip,git,ls,cd","--timeout-ms","30000","--max-output-size","1048576"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "terminal": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "pip",
                "run",
                "mcp-terminal",
                "--allowed-commands",
                "python,pip,git,ls,cd",
                "--timeout-ms",
                "30000",
                "--max-output-size",
                "1048576"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "terminal": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "pip",
                "run",
                "mcp-terminal",
                "--allowed-commands",
                "python,pip,git,ls,cd",
                "--timeout-ms",
                "30000",
                "--max-output-size",
                "1048576"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect