The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Tiger MCP listing page.
Tiger CLI is the command-line interface for Tiger Cloud. It provides commands for managing and querying database services, as well as an integrated Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for use with AI assistants.
Multiple installation methods are provided. Choose your preferred method from the options below. If you aren't sure, use the first one!
For manual repository installation instructions, see here.
For manual repository installation instructions, see here.
To upgrade an existing installation to the latest release:
This downloads the latest published binary, verifies its checksum, and replaces the currently running binary in place. If Tiger CLI was installed via a package manager (Homebrew, apt, yum/dnf), tiger upgrade will instead point you at the matching package-manager command.
After installing Tiger CLI, authenticate with your Tiger Cloud account:
Tiger CLI provides the following commands:
tiger auth - Authentication management
login - Log in to your Tiger accountlogout - Log out from your Tiger accountstatus - Show current authentication status and project ID (alias: whoami)tiger project - Project management
list - List all projects you have access to, marking the active one (alias: ls)use - Switch the active project (requires an OAuth login; clears the default service_id, since it belonged to the previous project) (alias: switch)tiger service - Service lifecycle management (aliases: services, svc)
list - List all services (alias: ls)create - Create a new serviceget - Show detailed service information (aliases: describe, show)fork - Fork an existing servicestart - Start a stopped service (alias: resume)stop - Stop a running service (alias: pause)resize - Resize service CPU and memory allocationdelete - Delete a service (alias: rm)update-password - Update service master passwordlogs - View service logs (alias: log)tiger db - Database operations
connect - Connect to a database with psql (in an interactive terminal, if the service has read replicas, offers to connect to one of them; use --no-replica-prompt to skip) (alias: psql)connection-string - Get connection string for a service (alias: uri)test-connection - Test database connectivity (aliases: test, ping)schema - Display database schema information (tables, views, indexes, functions, TimescaleDB hypertables, and more)save-password - Save a database password to configured password storage (keyring, pgpass, or none)create role - Create a new database role, with optional read-only enforcement, inherited grants (--from), and statement timeout (alias: create user)tiger config - Configuration management (alias: cfg)
show - Show current configuration (aliases: list, ls)set - Set configuration valueunset - Remove configuration value (aliases: rm, delete)reset - Reset configuration to defaults (alias: clear)tiger mcp - MCP server setup and management
install - Install and configure MCP server for an AI assistant (alias: add)start - Start the MCP serverlist - List available MCP tools, prompts, and resources (alias: ls)get - Get detailed information about a specific MCP capability (aliases: describe, show)tiger version - Show version informationtiger upgrade - Upgrade the Tiger CLI to the latest version (alias: update)Use tiger <command> --help for detailed information about each command.
Tiger CLI includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants like Claude Code to interact with your Tiger Cloud infrastructure. The MCP server provides programmatic access to database services and operations.
Configure the MCP server for your AI assistant:
After installation, restart your AI assistant to activate the Tiger MCP server.
If your MCP client is not supported by tiger mcp install, follow the client's
instructions for installing MCP servers. Use tiger mcp start as the command to
start the MCP server. For example, many clients use a JSON file like the
following:
The above instructions install the MCP server using the stdio transport. If you
need to use the Streamable HTTP transport instead, you can start the server with
tiger mcp start http --port 8080 and install it into your client using
http://localhost:8080 as the URL.
The MCP server exposes the following tools to AI assistants:
Service Management:
service_list - List all database services in your projectservice_get - Get detailed information about a specific serviceservice_create - Create new database services with configurable resourcesservice_fork - Fork an existing database service to create an independent copyservice_start - Start a stopped database serviceservice_stop - Stop a running database serviceservice_resize - Resize a database service by changing CPU and memory allocationservice_update_password - Update the master password for a serviceservice_logs - View logs for a database serviceDatabase Operations:
db_execute_query - Execute SQL queries against a database service with support for parameterized queries, custom timeouts, and connection poolingdb_schema - Display a service's database schema (tables, views, materialized views, enums, functions, procedures, indexes, triggers, and TimescaleDB hypertable/continuous aggregate metadata) as readable text for an agent's contextThe MCP server automatically uses your CLI authentication and configuration, so no additional setup is required beyond tiger auth login.
In addition to the service management tools listed above, the Tiger MCP server also proxies tools from a remote documentation MCP server. This feature provides AI assistants with semantic search capabilities for PostgreSQL, TimescaleDB, and Tiger Cloud documentation, as well as prompts/guides for various Tiger Cloud features.
The proxied documentation server (pg-aiguide) currently provides the following tools:
view_skill - Retrieve comprehensive guides for Postgres and TimescaleDB features and best practicessearch_docs - Search PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB documentation using natural language queriesThis proxy connection is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration.
To disable the documentation proxy:
The CLI stores configuration in ~/.config/tiger/config.yaml by default, and supports hierarchical configuration through environment variables and command-line flags.
All configuration options can be set via tiger config set <key> <value>:
analytics - Enable/disable analytics (default: true)
color - Enable/disable colored output (default: true)
docs_mcp - Enable/disable docs MCP proxy (default: true)
mcp_max_rows - Maximum number of rows the db_execute_query MCP tool returns per result set before truncating, to limit how much data lands in an AI agent's context. Only applies to the MCP tool, not CLI commands. Default: 100
output - Output format: json, yaml, or table (default: table)
password_storage - Password storage method: keyring, pgpass, or none (default: keyring)
read_only - Which services this CLI may change: all, prod, or off (default: off, which protects nothing). An interactive tiger auth login offers a menu of the three modes, and records your choice either way, so it only asks until you answer once. true and on are accepted as aliases for all, and false for off, so existing config files and TIGER_READ_ONLY=true behave as before.
Changing a protected service is refused, and so is creating one: tiger service create/fork/start/stop/resize/update-password/delete and tiger db create role return an error. Connection strings for it open the session in Tiger Cloud's immutable read-only mode, so the server rejects writes and DDL — that covers tiger db connect, tiger db connection-string, the db_execute_query MCP tool, and the connection strings embedded in tiger service output and the equivalent MCP tools.
all protects every service, and the MCP write tools aren't registered at all, so they don't appear in tools/list and can't be called.prod protects only services tagged PROD, leaving DEV services writable. tiger service create/fork are gated on the --environment they request, so creating a DEV service is allowed and a PROD one is not — otherwise you could create a service this same mode then refuses to delete. Forking a PROD service into a DEV fork is allowed, since that reads production without changing it. The MCP write tools stay registered — they still work on DEV services — and refuse per call instead. Reading a service's tag costs one extra API call for tiger service start/stop/resize/delete, and the operation is refused if that lookup fails. A read replica is judged on its own tag, so a replica of a PROD primary is protected only if that replica set is itself tagged PROD.service_id - Default service ID. Cleared automatically when the active project changes: by tiger project, and by tiger auth login unless it lands on the same project as the previous login. A service belongs to the project it was created in
version_check - When true, the CLI checks for a newer version on each invocation (in an interactive terminal) and prints a notice if one is available. Set to false to disable. Default: true.
Environment variables override configuration file values. All variables use the TIGER_ prefix:
TIGER_ANALYTICS - Enable/disable analyticsTIGER_COLOR - Enable/disable colored outputTIGER_CONFIG_DIR - Path to configuration directory (default: ~/.config/tiger)TIGER_DOCS_MCP - Enable/disable docs MCP proxyTIGER_OUTPUT - Output format: json, yaml, or tableTIGER_PASSWORD_STORAGE - Password storage method: keyring, pgpass, or noneTIGER_READ_ONLY - Which services this CLI may change: all, prod, or off (same aliases as read_only)TIGER_PUBLIC_KEY - Public key to use for authentication (takes priority over stored credentials)TIGER_SECRET_KEY - Secret key to use for authentication (takes priority over stored credentials)TIGER_SERVICE_ID - Default service IDTIGER_VERSION_CHECK - When true, the CLI checks for a newer version on each invocation (in an interactive terminal) and prints a notice if one is available; false to disableThese flags are available on all commands and take precedence over both environment variables and configuration file values:
--analytics - Enable/disable analytics--color - Enable/disable colored output--config-dir <path> - Path to configuration directory (default: ~/.config/tiger)--password-storage <method> - Password storage method: keyring, pgpass, or none--service-id <id> - Specify service ID--skip-update-check - Skip checking for updates on startup (default: false)-h, --help - Show help informationWe welcome contributions! Here's how to get started:
go test ./...)For detailed development information, see docs/development.md.
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.