inspector/clients/tui

MCP Inspector TUI Client

The Terminal User Interface (TUI) client brings the interactive exploration capabilities of the Web Client directly to your terminal. It is built using Ink to provide a rich, React-like component experience in a command-line environment.

Running the TUI

You can run the TUI client via npx:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --tui node build/index.js

With Configuration Files

The TUI can load all servers from an MCP catalog/config file. With no source flag it uses the default writable catalog ~/.mcp-inspector/mcp.json (seeded empty if missing):

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --tui --catalog mcp.json   # writable catalog (seeded if missing)
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --tui --config mcp.json    # read-only session (errors if absent)

(It does not use --server; all servers in the file are available in the TUI.)

Options

MCP server (which server(s) to connect to)

Options that specify the MCP server(s) (catalog/config file, ad-hoc command/URL, env vars, headers) are shared by the Web, CLI, and TUI and are documented in MCP server configuration: --catalog (writable catalog, seeded if missing; default ~/.mcp-inspector/mcp.json or MCP_CATALOG_PATH), --config (read-only session, errors if absent), -e, --cwd, --header, --transport, --server-url, and the positional [target...]. --catalog and --config are mutually exclusive, and neither combines with an ad-hoc target.

TUI-specific (OAuth for HTTP servers)

When connecting to SSE or Streamable HTTP servers that use OAuth, you can pass:

Option	Description
--client-id <id>	OAuth client ID (static client).
--client-secret <secret>	OAuth client secret (confidential clients).
--client-metadata-url <url>	OAuth Client ID Metadata Document URL (CIMD).
--callback-url <url>	OAuth redirect/callback listener URL (default: http://127.0.0.1:0/oauth/callback).

Features

The TUI provides terminal-native tabs and panes for interacting with your MCP server:

• Resources: Browse and read resources exposed by the server.
• Prompts: List and test prompts.
• Tools: View available tools and execute them with form-like inputs.
• History: View the request and response history of your interactions.
• Console: View the direct stdout/stderr and diagnostic logging of the connected server.

Navigation

• Use the Arrow Keys (Left/Right) or Tab to switch between the main tabs (Resources, Tools, Prompts, etc.).
• Use the Arrow Keys (Up/Down) to scroll through lists of items.
• Press Enter to select an item, execute a tool, or fetch a resource.
• Press Escape or Ctrl+C to exit the application.

Development

Like the other clients, the TUI self-validates from its own folder:

npm run validate       # format:check && lint && build && test:coverage
npm test               # run all tests
npm run test:coverage  # run tests under the per-file coverage gate

The repo-root validate:tui just delegates here. eslint.config.js registers react-hooks for the classic rules only (rules-of-hooks + exhaustive-deps); the stricter react-hooks@7 rules are not enforced on the interim component surface (#1501).

Tests live in __tests__/. The coverage gate currently covers the TUI's non-React logic (server resolution, logger, tab metadata, and the utils/ form/URL helpers); the Ink components and App.tsx are an interim exclusion in vitest.config.ts pending a renderer-based follow-up.