@mcp-rating/gateway

Run MCP servers without handing them your API keys.

Adding an MCP server to your client today spawns somebody else's code with your entire environment attached — AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, DATABASE_URL, everything in your shell. The gateway spawns them with a constructed environment instead: PATH, HOME, and only the variables you or its manifest name. Nothing else is there to read.

Reproduce it yourself in about ten seconds — node demo/run-demo.mjs plants two fake credentials, reads your real environment, and prints only the count and the planted values. Nothing of yours is displayed.

It is also a meta-server: one entry in your config gives you the whole registry, connected on demand rather than pre-loaded.

{ "mcpServers": { "gateway": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@mcp-rating/gateway"] } } }

Why it uses less of your context

Every MCP server you configure statically injects its full tool schema into every turn, whether you use it or not. The gateway exposes 13 meta-tools at a fixed cost and loads a server's tools only once you connect to it.

Roughly 5× less standing overhead at ten servers, and the gap widens with each one you add.

Honest about the method: measured from 6 servers this project connected to and introspected, sized as chars / 4. It is an estimate from a small sample, not a benchmark. And it is standing overhead only — connecting to a server pays that server's schema cost at connect time. The saving is real precisely because most configured servers sit unused in most conversations.

How It Works

┌────────────────────┐       ┌──────────────┐       ┌──────────────────┐
│  Claude Desktop /  │ stdio │              │ stdio  │ MCP Server A     │
│  Cursor / Windsurf │◄─────►│  MCP Gateway │◄──────►│ (e.g. filesystem)│
│  (host client)     │       │              │◄──┐    └──────────────────┘
└────────────────────┘       └──────────────┘   │    ┌──────────────────┐
                                    │           └───►│ MCP Server B     │
                                    ▼                │ (e.g. github)    │
                             ┌──────────────┐        └──────────────────┘
                             │ MCP-Rating   │
                             │ Registry API │
                             └──────────────┘

Instead of manually configuring each MCP server in your client, the Gateway:

1. Discovers servers via the MCP-Rating registry
2. Connects to them on-demand (spawns as child processes)
3. Proxies their tools through namespaced names (servername__toolname)
4. Notifies your client when tools are added/removed

Quick Start

With Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gateway": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@mcp-rating/gateway"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask Claude:

• "Search for MCP servers that work with databases" (uses mcp_discover)
• "Connect to the sqlite server" (uses mcp_connect)
• "Query my database" (calls the proxied tool directly)

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in a project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gateway": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@mcp-rating/gateway"] }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add gateway -- npx -y @mcp-rating/gateway

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json, same shape as Cursor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gateway": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@mcp-rating/gateway"] }
  }
}

Any other MCP client

{ "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@mcp-rating/gateway"] }

Restart the client after editing its config — most read it only at startup.

Meta-Tools

The gateway exposes 13 built-in tools:

Trust Tiers

Every connected server is labeled with a trust tier based on its MCP-Rating quality score:

• [Verified] — High quality + officially verified
• [Trusted] — Good quality with repository and install command
• [Community] — Listed in registry with basic quality
• [Unverified] — Unknown origin (manually connected)

Configuration

The gateway reads config from ~/.mcp-gateway/config.json:

{
  "registryApiUrl": "https://mcprating.io/api/v1",
  "proxyTimeoutMs": 30000,
  "maxConnections": 10,
  "logLevel": "info"
}

Environment Variables

Security model

The gateway exists because plain MCP hands every server your whole environment. Two layers push back, and it is worth being precise about what each one does and does not do.

L1 — environment scoping (always on, for stdio servers)

A downstream server receives PATH, HOME and friends, plus only the variable names its manifest allowlists or you pass at connect time. Everything else in the parent environment — AWS_*, OPENAI_API_KEY, DATABASE_URL — is withheld. Exported shell functions (BASH_FUNC_*) are dropped rather than forwarded.

This is genuine enforcement: the child process is spawned with a constructed environment, so there is nothing to opt out of or bypass.

L2 — container isolation (opt-in)

When a manifest requests it, or MCP_GATEWAY_CONTAINER_ISOLATION=true, the server runs under docker/podman with an ephemeral container.

Network allowlists: read this before relying on them

network: "allowlist" starts an in-process forward proxy and points the child at it via HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY.

This filters proxy-aware clients only. Node's fetch/undici, axios, and Python requests all honour those variables, which covers most real servers. A program that opens raw TCP sockets, or a compiled binary that ignores proxy environment variables, is not filtered. Treat allowlists in L1 as a guard rail against honest code, not a containment boundary against hostile code — for that you need L2 with container network namespacing.

Allowlist patterns fail closed: a malformed pattern such as *example.com (missing dot) matches nothing rather than everything. The gateway warns at startup about patterns that will not do what their author intended, including over-broad ones like *.com.

What is not covered

If the host client is SIGKILLed, the gateway cannot run its shutdown path and spawned child processes may be left behind. SIGINT/SIGTERM are handled and disconnect everything cleanly; SIGKILL is untrappable by definition.

Telemetry

Off unless you turn it on. The ad tracker is constructed only when MCP_GATEWAY_PARTNER_KEY is set — with no partner key there is no partner telemetry, and nothing is posted about your connects or tool calls.

If a partner key is set (you are earning attribution revenue), connect and tool-execution events are sent to mcprating.io. Disable it while keeping the key with MCP_GATEWAY_AD_TRACKING=false.