What it does

The Smithery CLI connects your development environment to the Smithery registry of MCP servers, enabling you to discover, install, and interact with MCP servers directly from the command line. It provides commands to search the registry, add server connections, list available tools from those servers, and call them. It also supports publishing your own MCP servers and bundles to the registry, managing authentication via OAuth, and organizing connections within namespaces.

Who it's for

Backend engineers and DevOps teams who want to integrate MCP servers into Claude Code, CLI tools, or local agents without manual configuration. Development teams publishing custom MCP servers to a shared registry.

Common use cases

Search the Smithery registry for an MCP server (e.g., GitHub, database) and add it in one command
List and discover tools available from your connected MCP servers
Call tools from connected servers directly via CLI (e.g., smithery tool call github create_issue)
Publish a custom MCP server or bundle to the Smithery registry for team or public use
Manage authentication tokens and service accounts for programmatic MCP access

Setup pitfalls

Requires Node.js 20+; earlier versions will fail silently during install
Filesystem and network access: the CLI reads and writes config files in ~/.smithery/ and makes HTTP requests to the Smithery registry; restrict execution in sandboxed environments
4 secrets detected in the codebase; review the source before deploying in untrusted contexts
OAuth tokens and service tokens are stored locally; secure your ~/.smithery/ directory and .env files, and rotate tokens if exposed

Tool name

Description

Destructive?

ping

✓ no

increment

✓ no

get_session_data

✓ no

get_server_info

✓ no

get_config

✓ no

@smithery/cli

What it does

Who it's for

Common use cases

Setup pitfalls