mcptunnels

mcptunnel expose -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-everything
# → https://tunnel.mcptunnels.xyz/t/q-3k9x2mab7c/s/mcp
#   password: 9f2c1ab4e7d03815a6c02b94

One command

mcptunnel expose -- <your MCP server> spawns any stdio MCP server, bridges it to Streamable HTTP, and prints a public URL. Nothing to deploy.

No accounts

No signup, no login, no config files. The hosted relay at tunnel.mcptunnels.xyz is the default — or self-host your own tunneld.

OAuth 2.1 by default

Public endpoints are gated behind a password the CLI generates. Clients like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor discover the OAuth flow automatically. --no-auth for open URLs.

Ephemeral by design

Tunnels live for 24 hours, then they’re gone. Ctrl-C deletes the tunnel server-side immediately — the URL and password die with your process.

Use it to

• Connect ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or any remote MCP client to a server running on your laptop
• Demo an MCP server to a teammate without deploying anything
• Test a server against a real client during development

Why not ngrok / cloudflared?

Generic tunnels forward raw TCP/HTTP. mcptunnels is MCP-shaped.

	mcptunnels	ngrok	cloudflared	bore
Takes an MCP server command	✅	❌ (ports only)	❌	❌
stdio → Streamable HTTP bridging	✅	❌	❌	❌
No account required	✅	❌	❌ (named tunnels)	✅
Self-hostable relay	✅	❌	❌	✅
Ephemeral-by-default URLs	✅ (24h TTL)	❌	❌	✅

If you already have an MCP server listening on a port with its own HTTP transport, a generic tunnel works fine. mcptunnels removes the stdio bridging step and everything around it.

Throwaway servers only

All tunnel traffic transits the relay operator, and --no-auth URLs are unauthenticated. Expose throwaway servers only — never private data. See Security.

Status: v1. The tunnel data plane is covered by end-to-end tests; compatibility with every major hosted MCP client is not yet exhaustively verified. Bug reports welcome on GitHub.

Roadmap

Where mcptunnels is headed. Roughly ordered; no dates — this is a spare-time project and priorities follow real user pain.

01Shipped

v1 — MVP

• Anonymous quick tunnels: mcptunnel expose – <cmd> → public URL.
• No accounts; OAuth 2.1 by default behind a CLI-generated password (–no-auth for open URLs).
• 24h TTL; a janitor sweeps expired tenants.
• Self-hosted tunneld: single binary + SQLite, ACME TLS, Docker or bare-metal.
• End-to-end tested data plane: WebSocket + yamux proxy, stdio bridge, SSE streaming, automatic reconnect.

02Planned

Next: permanent tunnels

The MVP’s ephemerality is the feature that lets us skip accounts — and the first thing real users will outgrow.

• Named, stable URLs. Claim /<you>/<name> once, keep it across restarts, reboots, and laptop sleeps.
• Minimal identity. Invite/token-based signup via the CLI — no web app.
• Multiple services per identity, each with its own stable URL and independent agent keys.
• CLI lifecycle: list, rotate keys, revoke, delete.

03Future

Then: scalable HTTP services

Today expose bolts a public URL onto a single local process. The destination is making MCP servers easy to run and scale as Streamable HTTP services.

• stdio → HTTP framework. Embed the bridge as a library: serve any stdio MCP server as Streamable HTTP behind a load balancer.
• Deployment targets. Recipes and adapters for containers, VMs, and edge platforms like Cloudflare Workers.
• Lifecycle handled once. Sessions, stateless vs. stateful modes, horizontal scaling semantics solved in one place.
• Graduation path. Develop against a quick tunnel; deploy to real infrastructure with the same transport.

04Future

Later: richer OAuth

Per-tunnel OAuth 2.1 (discovery metadata, DCR, PKCE) shipped with the MVP. What comes later:

• Pluggable identity. Today it’s a per-tunnel password page; later, bring-your-own IdP (Google, GitHub, enterprise OIDC).
• Audience isolation. Tokens scoped to a single tunnel so one compromised credential can’t roam.
• Identity pass-through. Forward identity headers to the local server so it can make per-user decisions without OAuth code.

Explicit non-goals (for now)

• Generic TCP/HTTP tunneling of non-MCP services (ngrok’s job, done well).
• A hosted, billing-backed SaaS. (There is a default public relay at https://tunnel.mcptunnels.xyz for convenience — it’s free and best-effort, and self-hosting stays a first-class path.)
• A web dashboard.

How to influence this

File an issue describing your use case — especially if the MVP’s 24h model is the thing blocking you. That’s the signal that permanent tunnels should move up.