DirForge

What Dissimilis/DirForge MCP server does

Dissimilis/DirForge MCP server gives MCP clients read-only access to files under a configured root directory. The available filesystem capabilities include listing directories, reading files, searching file contents, inspecting supported archives, calculating file hashes, and viewing disk usage. Access is constrained by the root path and can also be affected by hidden-path and denied-extension settings.

The application is designed for homelab and NAS-style file access. It does not require a database or background worker, and the README describes the deployment as stateless with no disk writes. The MCP interface is one part of a broader service that also includes a browser UI and other read-only access methods.

How it works

The application runs as a web service and exposes its MCP endpoint at /mcp/. The endpoint uses JSON-RPC 2.0 with Streamable HTTP transport. Clients connect to the running service rather than launching a separate MCP process for each request.

A host directory is mapped or assigned as RootPath, which becomes the filesystem area available to the service. Docker and Podman examples mount the host directory read-only. The service listens on port 8080 by default inside the container; the example publishes it as port 8091 on the host.

The server can use bearer-token authentication through a configurable header. HTTP Basic Auth and reverse-proxy authentication headers are also supported for the web application and related endpoints. Authentication should be configured before exposing the service beyond a trusted network.

Setup and configuration

The published container image is ghcr.io/dissimilis/dirforge:latest, with images available for amd64 and arm64. A typical container deployment sets RootPath and mounts the shared directory with read-only access. Podman can use the same commands by replacing the Docker executable.

Important settings include RootPath, Port, ListenIp, EnableMcpEndpoint, BearerToken, and BearerTokenHeaderName. The MCP endpoint is enabled by default in the documented configuration. HideDotfiles can hide entries beginning with a dot, while DenyDownloadExtensions blocks selected extensions from direct and ZIP downloads. The service also supports listing and directory-size cache settings, which may matter when working with large trees.

The README warns that the default compose setup can fall back to admin and dirforge credentials if authentication values are not supplied. Those values should be changed before network exposure. Only directories intended for sharing should be mounted, preferably with a read-only mount.

Tools and capabilities

Dissimilis/DirForge MCP server is suited to agents that need to inspect a filesystem without changing it. Supported operations described for the MCP interface include:

• Browsing directories and reading files.
• Searching content recursively with configurable depth and time limits.
• Inspecting .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, and .gz archives.
• Calculating CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 hashes.
• Checking disk or directory usage.

The wider service can preview text, images, video, audio, and PDF files in its web UI, download files or folders as ZIP archives, and provide signed or one-time share links. These additional features are available through the application, but are separate from the MCP transport itself.