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docs: qualify the ad-hoc rule and fix the contradicting -- guidance

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- The "nothing combines with an ad-hoc target" rule has a web exception:
  run-web.ts:130 exempts `--transport stdio`, so web ignores it rather
  than rejecting. Only cli/tui reject every `--transport`.
- mcp-server-configuration.md still said a leading-dash argument cannot
  reach a stdio server under --cli, the opposite of what the migration
  guide now says. The parser puts every pre-`--` token in targetArgs, so
  the guide is right; corrected the older section to match.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01SFXDQBEjvjCEBhmYkmw79a
This commit is contained in:
cliffhall 2026-08-10 20:53:45 -04:00
commit 8c9cf40211
2 changed files with 8 additions and 2 deletions
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8
docs/mcp-server-configuration.md
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@ -99,7 +99,13 @@ They differ on **when you need it**, though. Web sets `allowUnknownOption()` + `
mcp-inspector --cli node build/index.js -- --method tools/list
```
So under `--cli` the separator does **not** protect an argument from the Inspector — it does the opposite, and the web example above would have `--config /etc/myserver.conf` consumed as a read-only-session flag (then rejected as a catalog/ad-hoc conflict). There is currently no way to pass a leading-dash argument through to a stdio server on the `--cli` command line; put it in the server entry's `args` in a catalog or config file instead.
So under `--cli` the separator does **not** protect an argument from the Inspector — it does the opposite, and the web example above, run verbatim, would have `--config /etc/myserver.conf` consumed as a read-only-session flag (then rejected as a catalog/ad-hoc conflict). Leading-dash arguments for the server still get through; they just go on the other side of the separator, where the whole pre-`--` run is taken as the target verbatim:
```bash
mcp-inspector --cli node build/index.js --config /etc/myserver.conf --verbose -- --method tools/list
```
Without a `--` on the line the target is only the leading run of **non-dash** tokens, so the separator is required whenever the server itself takes flags.
## The shared flags

2
docs/v1-to-v2-migration.md
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@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --catalog ./mcp.json
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
```
**Rules:** `--catalog` and `--config` are mutually exclusive, and neither combines with an ad-hoc target (a positional command, `--server-url`, or `--transport`). v1 silently preferred the config file; v2 tells you.
**Rules:** `--catalog` and `--config` are mutually exclusive, and neither combines with an ad-hoc target (a positional command, `--server-url`, or `--transport`). v1 silently preferred the config file; v2 tells you. One exception: the **web** client exempts `--transport stdio` from that check, so it survives alongside `--catalog`/`--config` (ignored rather than rejected) — the CLI and TUI reject every `--transport`.
If you export `MCP_CATALOG_PATH` in your shell, note that **web and TUI read it unconditionally** — so an ad-hoc invocation such as `mcp-inspector --tui node build/index.js` is rejected as a catalog/ad-hoc conflict. Unset it for that invocation. The CLI ignores the variable whenever an ad-hoc target is present.