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Shell Exec MCP Server

local only

Shell Exec runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 41 installs a week from npm. Last commit 9 Sep 2026.

Execute bash commands with background job support.

Installs per day peak 35 · avg 11 · -13% w/w
a month agotoday
41
Installs / week
npm · shell-exec-mcp
8
Stars
1 open issues
9 Sep 2026
Last commit
0 releases in 90 days
License
TypeScript

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check Shell Exec every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Three servers free · no card

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add shell-exec-mcp -- npx -y shell-exec-mcp
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shell-exec-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "shell-exec-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.shell-exec-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "shell-exec-mcp"]
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shell-exec-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "shell-exec-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shell-exec-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "shell-exec-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: MCP_TRANSPORT (Transport type.). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

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Shell Exec — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for Shell Exec?
Shell Exec runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the npm package shell-exec-mcp was installed 41 times last week.
How do I connect Shell Exec?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls shell-exec-mcp straight from npm; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.
How many people use Shell Exec?
The npm package shell-exec-mcp was installed 41 times in the last week. Week over week that is -13%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.
Is Shell Exec open source?
We cannot say either way: written in TypeScript, 8 stars on GitHub and 1 open issue, but we could not determine the licence, and without one the code is not open source by default.