Toolport is a local MCP (Model Context Protocol) gateway. You set up and authenticate each server once, and every AI client (Claude, Cursor, Codex, and the rest) points at Toolport and shares them, so you stop configuring the same servers separately in each app.

It also fixes what those servers cost your agent. Every MCP server you connect dumps all of its tools into context on every single request, and it adds up fast: just 3 servers (62 tools) cost ~24,000 tokens of definitions before you've asked anything. Toolport advertises a handful of compact meta-tools the agent searches on demand instead, so it pays ~900 tokens (96% less, measured).

Measured on a frontier model: up to 91% fewer total tokens at the same task success (graded for correct answers, not just completion), plus 96% less tool-definition overhead on every request, rising to 99.5% on a real 415-tool catalog (see BENCHMARK.md). That holds whether you run one AI tool or five, on cloud models (where tokens are your bill) or local ones (where tool defs eat your context window).

Fewer tokens - lazy discovery keeps context flat no matter how many servers you connect	One config, every client - set up a server once, every AI tool shares it	Supply-chain security - rug-pull and tool-poisoning detection on the path

Get started in two minutes

1. Download the installer for Windows, macOS, or Linux (details in Install).
2. Add a server from the built-in catalog, or paste a config snippet from any server's docs, and authenticate once.
3. Open Clients and click Connect to Toolport on each AI client you use.

That's the whole setup. Every client now shares the same servers, and new servers you add propagate to all of them. There's a 60-second demo on the website if you want to watch it first.

Why

Every MCP server you connect dumps its full tool list into your agent's context on every request, and most AI clients also want their own separate configuration. So you pay a token tax on every call and reconfigure the same servers in every app. Toolport fixes both.

Fewer tokens

• ~90% fewer tokens. In lazy-discovery mode the gateway advertises four compact meta-tools (toolport_status, toolport_search_tools, toolport_call_tool, toolport_fetch_result) instead of the full catalog, and the agent searches and calls on demand, so context stays flat no matter how many servers you connect. (A couple more appear only when you turn the matching feature on: toolport_confirm with approvals, enable/disable with agent control.) Benchmarked, graded for correct answers: up to 91% fewer total tokens at the same task success, 96% less tool-definition overhead per request, 99.5% at a real 415-tool catalog (BENCHMARK.md). Ask toolport_status for what it has saved you so far.
• Search by intent, not just keywords. toolport_search_tools ranks by relevance across every server, and no tool is ever hidden, any server's full set is one call away. Optional semantic re-ranking (a local or hosted embeddings endpoint) surfaces paraphrased needs like "charge a card"; off by default, pure lexical otherwise.

One setup, every client

• Set up once, use everywhere. Each client points at one gateway. Add and authenticate a server a single time and it appears in every client.
• Paste from any client's docs. Copy a server config snippet straight from an MCP server's installation instructions (Cursor JSON, Codex TOML, VS Code, Zed, Claude Code CLI, or any other supported client) and paste it into the Add Server dialog. Toolport auto-detects the format and pre-fills the fields, including environment variable values.
• Per-agent scoping. Give each client only the servers it should see. A coding agent literally cannot call a billing tool that isn't in its profile.
• Obvious auth. OAuth or API key, stored once in the OS keychain, a single click per server. Newly-authed servers propagate to connected clients without a restart.
• No secrets in client configs. Clients only ever say "talk to Toolport." Keys live in the OS keychain and are injected at runtime.
• A catalog to grow. Add popular servers from a curated list of 40+, or search the official MCP Registry, then authenticate through the same flow.

Security, because the gateway is on the path

• Tool integrity (rug-pull + poisoning detection). Toolport fingerprints each tool when you connect a server and flags it if the definition later changes or a server quietly adds one (a "rug pull"), or if a description or schema carries injection-like content ("tool poisoning"). Detection only, on by default, entirely local.
• Content defense (anti-agentjacking). When a tool returns untrusted content (a Sentry error, a web page, an issue body) with injection-like instructions, Toolport flags it and marks it as external data, not instructions, the separation that blunts indirect prompt injection. Never blocks, on by default.
• Human-in-the-loop approvals. Turn on approval mode and destructive tool calls pause until you approve or deny them in the app, with an OS notification when a call is waiting. Deny actually blocks the call; the agent just sees a declined tool call. Your agent asks before it drops the table.
• Governance and audit. Toggle any tool on or off, or hide every destructive tool from every client with one switch. Every call is recorded with per-server latency and error rates.

Control and extras

• Agent control, on your terms. Optionally let an agent enable or disable servers through the gateway (toolport_enable_server / toolport_disable_server), reflected in the app live. Off by default, and the destructive-tool switch always stays yours.
• Full MCP, not just tools. Tools, resources, and prompts are all proxied.
• Test before you wire it up. A built-in playground invokes any tool with a form generated from its schema, so you can confirm a server works without configuring a client first.
• Diagnostics in one click. Bundles your version, OS, a secrets-stripped server summary, and the recent gateway log, ready to paste into a bug report.

How it works

Toolport has two pieces:

1. The desktop app (Tauri + React) where you manage servers, profiles, credentials, and which clients are connected.
2. The gateway binary (toolport-gateway) that each AI client launches over stdio. It reads Toolport's registry, connects to the enabled downstream servers (stdio or remote HTTP/SSE), and routes tool calls to the right one. Tool names are namespaced per server (stripe__list_charges) so they never collide.

AI client (Cursor / Claude / Codex / Antigravity / ...)
        │  stdio MCP
        ▼
  toolport-gateway  ──reads──►  registry.json + OS keychain
        │  routes tools/calls
        ▼
  downstream MCP servers (Stripe, Supabase, GitHub, ...)

The registry is the shared source of truth; the gateway watches it and rebuilds live, so toggles and new credentials take effect without restarting the client. If a connected server changes its own tool set mid-session, Toolport picks that up and refreshes too.

Supported clients

Toolport auto-detects these 27 AI clients, installs the gateway into each with one click, and can import a client's existing servers. It writes the config file shown below for you, so you never have to edit these by hand.

<config> is your OS application-config dir (%APPDATA% on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support on macOS, ~/.config on Linux); <data> is the data dir (~/.local/share on Linux, the same as <config> elsewhere). Zed and Goose paths vary slightly by OS; Toolport resolves the right one automatically.

Codex setup walkthrough

Use this when Codex has already created its ~/.codex/ directory.

1. In Toolport, add or enable the MCP servers you want Codex to use.
2. Open Clients, select Codex, optionally choose a profile, and click Connect to Toolport.
3. Toolport updates ~/.codex/config.toml with a single [mcp_servers.toolport] entry. That entry runs the resolved toolport-gateway binary; existing Codex TOML keys and other MCP servers are preserved, and an existing config is backed up before the write. (Older installs that still have [mcp_servers.conduit] are renamed to toolport on the next Toolport launch.)
4. Start a new Codex session so it re-reads the config. In Toolport, the Codex row changes to connected to Toolport; in Codex, Toolport-managed tools are served through the one toolport MCP server. With lazy discovery enabled, Codex gets Toolport's compact search tools instead of every downstream tool up front.

Gotcha: when running Toolport from source, build the gateway first with npm run build:gateway. The desktop dev server does not build the separate binary that Codex spawns, so Codex will report the gateway as missing until that binary exists.

Open WebUI and other HTTP/OpenAPI consumers

The gateway speaks HTTP/OpenAPI natively, so Open WebUI (and any OpenAPI tool client) connects straight to Toolport, no bridge or proxy. Flip on Settings -> Integrations -> Open WebUI / HTTP endpoint in the app (or run toolport-gateway --http 8765 after setting TOOLPORT_HTTP_TOKEN), then add http://localhost:8765 as an OpenAPI tool server. See docs/openwebui.md. The same endpoint serves any HTTP/OpenAPI MCP consumer (n8n, LibreChat, custom agents).

Headless / container / MCP over the network

The same --http process also serves MCP streamable-HTTP at POST /mcp, so sandboxed coding agents and remote clients can use a URL instead of stdio. For Docker, env-file secrets, and a compose example, see docs/headless.md. Prebuilt image: docker pull ghcr.io/tsouth89/toolport-gateway:latest (published from main).

Configuration

Lazy discovery, the destructive-tool block, and agent control are global settings, stored in the registry and toggled in the app's Settings view, so they apply to every client (lazy discovery is on by default). Per-client behavior is set via env vars on the gateway entry, written for you when you connect a client:

• TOOLPORT_CLIENT_ID=<id> - identifies this client for live profile resolution (written automatically when you Connect a client).
• TOOLPORT_PROFILE=<name> - initial profile scope for a scoped install. Unset = follow the active profile (resolved live via TOOLPORT_CLIENT_ID).
• TOOLPORT_DISCOVERY=lazy|full|grouped - optional per-client override of the global discovery setting. Rarely needed; the gateway reads the registry default otherwise.
• TOOLPORT_REGISTRY=<path> - override the registry file location. Defaults to a stable per-user path so packaged and unpackaged clients agree.
• TOOLPORT_DATA_DIR=<path> - override the full Toolport data directory.
• TOOLPORT_RESULT_BUDGET=<bytes> - cap oversized tool results at this many bytes (0 disables it). Optional; default budget applies when unset.
• TOOLPORT_HTTP=<port> (with optional TOOLPORT_HTTP_HOST, default 127.0.0.1, and TOOLPORT_HTTP_TOKEN for the required bearer token) - run the gateway in HTTP/OpenAPI mode instead of stdio, for Open WebUI and other OpenAPI clients (see above). The in-app Settings -> Integrations toggle sets these for you, and the gateway refuses to bind without a token or registered HTTP client. For isolated local development only, --insecure-loopback explicitly permits an unauthenticated loopback listener; it never permits an open non-loopback bind.
• TOOLPORT_METRICS=1 - opt-in Prometheus GET /metrics on the HTTP surface.
• TOOLPORT_DEBUG=1 - per-request gateway trace logging.
• TOOLPORT_CODE_MODE=1 - force-enable code mode (toolport_run_script); Settings can also toggle this.

Every TOOLPORT_* name still accepts the pre-rename CONDUIT_* alias (for example CONDUIT_HTTP_TOKEN continues to work). Prefer TOOLPORT_* in new configs.

Semantic search (optional). Lazy discovery ranks tools lexically by default. Point it at any /v1/embeddings endpoint (LM Studio, Ollama, or a cloud provider) to blend in embedding similarity for paraphrased queries: TOOLPORT_SEMANTIC=on, TOOLPORT_EMBED_ENDPOINT, TOOLPORT_EMBED_MODEL, plus optional TOOLPORT_EMBED_KEY (endpoint auth) and TOOLPORT_EMBED_BLEND.

Multiple accounts for the same service. Credentials belong to a server, not a profile. To use, say, a work and a personal GitHub, add GitHub twice as two servers ("GitHub (work)", "GitHub (personal)"), authenticate each with its own account, and enable one in each profile. A client scoped to the work profile (TOOLPORT_PROFILE) then only ever sees the work account. Tool names are namespaced per server, so the two never collide even in the same profile.

Install

Quickest:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install --cask tsouth89/toolport/toolport

# macOS or Linux (script: .deb via apt where available, else AppImage; Mac copies the app)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsouth89/toolport/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

On Windows, download the .exe from the latest release.

Prebuilt installers are published on the Releases page. Toolport runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. On Linux, prefer the .deb (it links your system's WebKitGTK and is the most reliable package); the AppImage is a portable, no-root fallback but can clash with very new or virtualized graphics stacks (see Troubleshooting). To run from source, see Development below.

Both the Windows and macOS installers are code-signed, and macOS is also notarized, so it installs cleanly through Gatekeeper. On Windows the installer carries a validated publisher name (no "unknown publisher"), but because it uses a standard certificate rather than EV, SmartScreen reputation still builds with downloads, so an early install may show "Windows protected your PC", click More info -> Run anyway to continue. The Linux packages are unsigned, as is typical. See docs/SIGNING.md for details.

Updating and uninstalling on Linux. There is no graphical uninstaller, use the terminal. The package name is toolport.

# Update to a newer version: just install the new .deb, it upgrades in place.
sudo apt install ./Toolport_1.5.1_amd64.deb

# Uninstall (keeps your config + saved secrets).
sudo apt remove toolport

# Uninstall and wipe app config too (secrets in the keyring stay).
sudo apt purge toolport

If you used the AppImage, there's nothing to uninstall, just delete the .AppImage file. (On Windows use Add or Remove Programs; on macOS drag Toolport.app to the Trash.)

Development

Requires Node and the Rust toolchain.

npm install
npm run tauri dev      # run the desktop app

Other useful commands:

cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml   # Rust unit tests (lib + gateway)

# Build the gateway binary. Required when running from source: AI clients spawn
# this binary directly, so without it a connected client reports "not found".
# (Packaged releases bundle it, so installed users never need this.)
npm run build:gateway

# Build a Windows installer (NSIS) with the gateway bundled.
npm run tauri:bundle

The frontend is typechecked with npx tsc --noEmit.

Troubleshooting

• OAuth opens a blank page (macOS). The OAuth flow redirects back to a local http://127.0.0.1 callback. Safari can silently block that redirect, so the sign-in page renders blank. Set Chrome or Brave as your default browser (or paste an access token instead). Complete one attempt at a time, an abandoned attempt keeps the callback port reserved for a few minutes and can cause a "state mismatch" on the next try.
• A client reports the gateway "was not found" (running from source). Build the gateway binary once: npm run build:gateway (or cargo build --no-default-features --bin toolport-gateway --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml). npm run tauri dev builds the app but not this separate binary; packaged releases bundle it, so installed users never hit this.
• An npx/uvx server shows "Error" then works on retry. On a cold npm/PyPI cache the first connect can take up to ~2 minutes while the package downloads. v1.6.0+ shows "Installing…" during that wait and pre-warms downloads when you add the server. If it still fails, check network access and try Re-check after a minute.
• Repeated macOS keychain prompts / "could not read secret from the keychain" in dev. An unsigned dev build gets an unstable code-signing identity, so the keychain re-prompts or denies reads. Signed release builds (v0.9.3+) don't: they store secrets in the macOS data-protection keychain under a shared access group, so the gateway reads them with no prompt. This is a dev-only artifact.
• "could not read/store secret" on Linux. Secret storage uses the freedesktop Secret Service (libsecret), provided by GNOME Keyring, KWallet, or similar. A headless box or a session without a running keyring daemon has nowhere to store secrets. Run Toolport in a desktop session, or install and unlock a keyring (e.g. gnome-keyring).
• macOS keychain and the gateway (v0.9.3+). The app and the separately-signed gateway share a team-scoped keychain access group, so the gateway reads the secrets the app saved with no prompt, even across app updates. (Earlier releases showed a one-time "Always Allow" prompt; on current signed builds it's gone.)
• VS Code: the toolport server doesn't start automatically. VS Code may require you to click Start Server on the toolport MCP entry the first time, that's VS Code's own MCP handling, not Toolport. After that it reconnects on its own.
• Linux: the AppImage won't launch / no window (EGL_BAD_PARAMETER). The AppImage bundles its own libraries, which can clash with a very new or virtualized graphics stack (e.g. VMware's vmwgfx driver, where the default EGL display fails). Use the .deb instead, it links your system's WebKitGTK and is the more reliable Linux package. If you must use the AppImage, try EGL_PLATFORM=surfaceless ./Toolport_*.AppImage, or in a VM enable 3D acceleration. (This is a packaging/GPU issue, not a Toolport bug; the .deb works where the AppImage doesn't.)

Status

Toolport is in active development. Working end to end: the gateway, lazy discovery, per-agent scoping, OAuth/key auth with live propagation, the catalog, client import/migrate, per-tool and destructive-tool governance, the human approval queue, a global Settings view, tool-integrity and content-defense detection, an audit log with latency/error stats, resources + prompts proxying, a tool playground, and a headless/container gateway (MCP over HTTP/SSE, Docker, GHCR image — see docs/headless.md). See docs/ROADMAP.md for what is done and planned.

Known issues

• Linux only, glib VariantStrIter soundness (RUSTSEC-2024-0429). Tauri's Linux webview stack pulls in glib 0.18 transitively (wry → webkit2gtk → gtk 0.18 → glib 0.18). The fix only exists in glib 0.20+, and the gtk-0.18 binding line, which is what Tauri 2 uses on Linux, hard-pins glib = "^0.18", so the patched release cannot be selected without moving the whole webview stack. The bug is a soundness/null-deref crash (not remote code execution), is confined to the webview binding layer (Toolport never calls VariantStrIter), and does not affect the Windows or macOS builds. We are tracking the upstream move to a glib-0.20 stack and will apply a [patch.crates-io] backport if Linux crashes surface before then.

Toolport Teams

Want one shared, governed MCP server set across your whole team? Toolport Teams lets an admin define the team's servers once, every member's Toolport syncs them, and each member's keys still never leave their own machine.

Run it whichever way you prefer:

• Hosted: sign in at toolport.app/teams and invite your team, no infrastructure to run.
• Self-hosted: one Docker command (docker pull ghcr.io/tsouth89/toolport-teams).

Same pricing hosted or self-hosted:

• Free for up to 5 people: one shared server set, the safety policy, and a 30-day exportable audit trail.
• Team, $39/month for up to 5 people, then $12/person: adds per-server access control, roles, spend budgets, full audit history, and Slack/Discord/Teams alerts.
• Either way, each member's keys stay on their own machine, and local-command servers are per-member opt-in (a team config can never silently run code on a member's machine).

Pricing, the self-host quickstart, and checkout are all at toolport.app/teams.

License

MIT, and the local app and gateway always will be. Toolport follows an open-core model: the desktop app and toolport-gateway are free and open source, and Toolport Teams (above) funds the free app. Anything you contribute here is MIT and benefits everyone, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

If Toolport saves you tokens (ask toolport_status how many), a star helps other people find it.