MCP Spine is a local-first proxy that sits between Claude Desktop (or any MCP client) and your MCP servers. One config, one entry point, full control
MCP Spine MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on MCP Spine directly instead of describing what you should do. MCP Spine is a local-first proxy that sits between Claude Desktop (or any MCP client) and your MCP servers. One config, one entry point, full control over what goes in, what comes out, and what gets logged.
The server ships on PyPI as mcp-spine, so your MCP client can launch it on demand — there is no separate build step. Add the server block to your client's configuration, restart it, and the tools register themselves.
Once MCP Spine is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:
Diagnostics — The Diagnostics tool exposed by this serverYou will need 2 environment variables: GITHUB_TOKEN, BRAVE_API_KEY. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
This sits in the developer tooling group, where several servers overlap in what they claim to do but differ sharply once you actually set them up. MCP Spine's toolset — Diagnostics — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by donnyb369; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
This entry was verified against MCP Spine's own documentation before publication; SyncDev keeps the directory reviewed rather than auto-generated.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Diagnostics | The Diagnostics tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"spine": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["mcp-spine"],
"env": {
"GITHUB_TOKEN": "your-value",
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-value"
}
}
}
}Add to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| GITHUB_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| BRAVE_API_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
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