mcporter-cli

name	mcporter-cli
description	Use the mcporter CLI for ad-hoc MCP server discovery, testing, schema inspection, and tool calls without changing Hermes configuration.
version	1.0.0
author	AstroAgent / AIP
license	MIT
metadata	{"hermes":{"tags":["mcp","mcporter","node","cli","debugging","infrastructure"],"category":"infrastructure","related_skills":["hermes-native-mcp","docs-mcp-at-aip"]}}

mcporter CLI

When to Use

Use this skill when you want to inspect or call MCP servers from the terminal without first wiring them into Hermes native MCP configuration.

Typical cases:

• quick testing of an HTTP MCP endpoint
• debugging a server before adding it to mcp_servers
• listing tools and schemas for a server
• making ad-hoc MCP tool calls with structured JSON output

Procedure

1. Check prerequisites

command -v npx
npx -y mcporter list --output json || true

2. List configured MCP servers

npx -y mcporter list --output json

3. Inspect an ad-hoc HTTP MCP server

npx -y mcporter list \
  --http-url https://docs-mcp-server.kube.aip.de/mcp \
  --name docs \
  --output json

4. Inspect tools and schemas

npx -y mcporter list docs --schema --output json

5. Call a tool

npx -y mcporter call docs.search_docs \
  library=dask \
  query='read_parquet partitions' \
  limit:3 \
  --output json

6. Use as a fallback when native MCP is unavailable

If Hermes native MCP tools are unavailable in the current process, use mcporter to:

1. verify the endpoint is alive
2. verify tool discovery
3. perform ad-hoc calls while deciding whether to add the server to mcp_servers

7. TLS trust fix for internal HTTPS endpoints

If mcporter reports:

• unable to verify the first certificate

and the same endpoint works with low-level debugging, the usual cause is a missing trusted intermediate certificate.

Preferred fix:

NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/path/to/custom-ca-bundle.pem \
  npx -y mcporter list \
  --http-url https://docs-mcp-server.kube.aip.de/mcp \
  --name docs \
  --output json

This preserves verification while allowing Node to trust the internal chain.

Pitfalls

• Prefer --output json for automation and debugging.
• Ad-hoc URLs are excellent for testing, but they do not make tools natively available in Hermes sessions by themselves.
• If a server works only with insecure TLS bypasses, fix trust rather than relying on insecure settings long-term.
• For interactive OAuth flows, a PTY may be required.

Verification

• mcporter list --http-url ... --output json returns server status ok.
• mcporter call ... --output json returns structured tool output.
• The same server can then be promoted into Hermes mcp_servers config if desired.