mcproc

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for comfortable background process management on AI agents.

English | 日本語

Overview

mcproc bridges the gap between AI agent development and traditional command-line workflows. It enables AI agents to manage long-running development processes (like dev servers, build watchers, etc.) while providing developers with full CLI access to monitor and control these same processes.

Why mcproc?

Simple AI agent-launched processes are stateless and can’t manage long-running processes effectively. mcproc solves this by:

• Unified Control: No more confusion about which agent or terminal is running what - all processes are centrally managed
• Context Preservation: Logs are captured and stored, allowing AI agents to debug issues while reviewing logs from earlier
• Developer-Friendly: Full CLI access means you’re never locked out of your own development environment

Key Features

• 🔄 Unified Process Management: Start and manage background processes from AI agents via MCP, then monitor them from your terminal
• 👁️ Cross-Environment Visibility: Processes started by AI agents are fully accessible via CLI and other agents, and vice versa
• 📝 Intelligent Log Management: Capture, persist, and search process logs with powerful regex patterns
• 📁 Project-Aware: Automatically groups processes by project context
• 📊 Real-time Monitoring: Follow logs in real-time from CLI while AI agents manage the processes
• 🛡️ XDG Compliant: Follows XDG Base Directory specification for proper file organization
• ⚡ Wait-for-Log: Start processes and wait for specific log patterns to ensure readiness
• 🔍 Advanced Search: Time-based filtering, context lines, and regex support for log analysis
• 🧰 Toolchain Support: Execute commands through version managers (mise, asdf, nvm, rbenv, etc.)
• 🧹 Clean Command: Stop all processes in a project with a single command
• 🌲 Process Groups: Automatic cleanup of child processes when stopping parent processes

Installation

Using Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

# Add the tap
brew tap neptaco/tap

# Install mcproc
brew install mcproc

Build from source

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (rustc, cargo)
• protobuf compiler:
  • macOS: brew install protobuf
  • Linux: apt-get install protobuf-compiler

git clone https://github.com/neptaco/mcproc.git
cd mcproc
cargo build --release

# Install to PATH (optional)
cargo install --path mcproc

Usage

Setup as MCP Server

After installing mcproc, you need to register it as an MCP server with your AI assistant.

For Claude Code

# Register mcproc as an MCP server