Configuration

MCP-TUI auto-discovers MCP server configurations on your machine so you do not have to retype connection details.

Discovered locations

Source	Path
Claude Desktop	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS), %APPDATA%/Claude/... (Windows)
VS Code MCP	.vscode/mcp.json in the current workspace
Native MCP-TUI	~/.config/mcp-tui/servers.json

The Discovery tab in the TUI shows every server it found, with names and descriptions when present.

Native config format

{
  "servers": [
    {
      "name": "everything",
      "transport": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@modelcontextprotocol/server-everything", "stdio"],
      "description": "Reference test server"
    },
    {
      "name": "remote",
      "transport": "http",
      "url": "https://my-mcp.example.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${MCP_TOKEN}" }
    }
  ]
}

Environment variable substitution

${VAR} is expanded at connection time from the current environment. This keeps secrets out of the file.

{ "Authorization": "Bearer ${MCP_TOKEN}" }

Validation rejects empty expansions when the field is required.

Auto-connect

If exactly one server is configured (or one is marked default), MCP-TUI connects to it on launch instead of showing the connection screen. Override with --no-auto-connect.