mcpjungle start — server command reference

Reference for the start, init-server, and version commands — all flags, environment variables, and server modes for running the MCPJungle gateway.

These commands operate on the MCPJungle server process itself rather than on its registry contents. start launches the gateway, init-server prepares it for enterprise use, and version reports what is running.

start

Starts the MCPJungle HTTP server and MCP gateway.

mcpjungle start [flags]

The server listens on port 8080 by default and exposes the MCP proxy at /mcp. On first run in development mode, it automatically initializes itself — no additional setup is needed.

Flags

--port · string

TCP port to bind the HTTP server to. Overrides the PORT environment variable. Defaults to 8080.

--enterprise · boolean · default: "false"

Start the server in enterprise mode, which enables access control, authenticated clients, and user management. Equivalent to setting SERVER_MODE=enterprise. When using this flag on a fresh database, the server will print a reminder to run init-server before it can be used.

--prod · boolean · default: "false"

Deprecated alias for --enterprise. Use --enterprise instead.

Environment variables

The start command reads the following environment variables. A .env file in the working directory is loaded automatically if present.

Variable	Description	Default
PORT	TCP port to bind to. Overridden by --port.	8080
SERVER_MODE	Server mode: development or enterprise. Overridden by --enterprise.	development
DATABASE_URL	Full DSN for the database connection (SQLite or Postgres).	SQLite file in working directory
POSTGRES_HOST	Postgres host. When set, individual Postgres env vars are used to construct the DSN.	—
POSTGRES_PORT	Postgres port.	5432
POSTGRES_USER	Postgres user.	postgres
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Postgres password. Also readable from POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE.	—
POSTGRES_DB	Postgres database name. Also readable from POSTGRES_DB_FILE.	postgres
MCP_SERVER_INIT_REQ_TIMEOUT_SEC	Seconds to wait for an upstream MCP server to respond during registration.	30
SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SEC	Idle timeout in seconds for stateful MCP sessions. Set to 0 for no timeout.	-1 (no timeout)
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry tracing and metrics. Accepts true/1 or false/0.	false in dev, true in enterprise

For POSTGRES_PASSWORD and POSTGRES_DB, you can use the _FILE variant (e.g., POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/pg_pass) to read the value from a file. This is useful for Docker secrets and Kubernetes secrets mounted as files.

Examples

Start in development mode (default):

mcpjungle start

Start on a custom port:

mcpjungle start --port 9000

Start in enterprise mode:

mcpjungle start --enterprise

Start with a Postgres database:

DATABASE_URL="postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/mcpjungle" mcpjungle start

Server modes

Development mode (default)

Development mode is designed for individual use. The server initializes itself automatically on first startup — no admin token or init-server step is needed. Access control is not enforced, meaning any client that can reach the server can call any tool.

This mode is appropriate for local development and single-user deployments.

Enterprise mode

Enterprise mode enables access control. Each MCP client must present a bearer token, and each token is scoped to a specific list of allowed servers. Users are separately managed and authenticated.

When starting in enterprise mode for the first time, the server does not initialize automatically. You must run mcpjungle init-server to complete setup and obtain the admin access token.

Enterprise mode also enables OpenTelemetry telemetry by default.

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init-server

Initializes the MCPJungle server when running in enterprise mode. This command is run once, from your local machine, after the server has started.

mcpjungle init-server [--registry <url>]

init-server creates the admin user, generates the admin access token, and saves both the registry URL and token to ~/.mcpjungle.conf. After running this command, your CLI is authenticated as admin.

Run init-server only once. Re-running it on an already-initialized server will return an error. The admin access token is only displayed once — save it immediately.

Example

mcpjungle --registry http://your-server:8080 init-server

After this command completes, ~/.mcpjungle.conf is written with your credentials and subsequent commands work without the --registry flag.

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version

Prints version information for both the CLI binary and the connected server.

mcpjungle version

Output

CLI Version: v1.2.3
Server Version: v1.2.3
Server URL:  http://127.0.0.1:8080

If the server is unreachable (for example, when running the CLI without a local server), the server version line is replaced with a message indicating the version could not be retrieved.

You can also use the root-level --version flag for a condensed output:

mcpjungle --version