openclaw -bridge

openclaw-mcp-bridge acts as an smart MCP bridge that connects multiple MCP servers and exposes them through a single interface. It can operate in two modes: smart, which uses relevance analysis, ranking, thresholds, and optional caching to surface the most relevant tools, and traditional, which registers all discovered MCP tools at startup with no relevance filtering. You can run the bridge as a standalone MCP server or enable it as an OpenClaw plugin. When using the standalone mode, you configure the bridge via a JSON file (for example, bridge-config.json), and the bridge will discover and/or load the configured MCP servers. Core capabilities include finding available tools across connected MCP servers (mcp_find_tools), invoking a specific tool (mcp_call_tool), and listing configured MCP servers (mcp_list_servers). In plugin mode, the bridge can auto-discover servers from ~/.mcp.json if enabled, and tools can be accessed through the unified interface while still preserving the downstream server identities. To use the tools, first locate eligible tools with mcp_find_tools (optionally providing a need string for ranking), then call mcp_call_tool with the selected server and tool, passing any necessary arguments. The bridge also supports explicit server configurations (name, transport, command, and arguments) and can be configured to auto-discover servers or rely on a provided servers array.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 20.19+ (recommended)
• pnpm
• (Optional) OpenClaw if you plan to use the plugin mode

Installation steps (standalone build):

1. Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/gabrielekarra/openclaw-mcp-bridge.git
2. Install dependencies cd openclaw-mcp-bridge pnpm install
3. Build the project pnpm build
4. Run the bridge (standalone) pnpm start -- --config ./examples/bridge-config.json

Alternative run (direct Node invocation after build): node dist/server/index.js --config ./examples/bridge-config.json

Note: This package is not published to npm. Use it locally by cloning and building from source.

• The bridge can auto-discover MCP servers from ~/.mcp.json when autoDiscover is enabled. You can also provide an explicit servers list in the plugin config under plugins.entries.mcp-bridge.config or via the standalone bridge config.
• In smart mode, relevance scoring and thresholds control how many tools are surfaced; in traditional mode, all discovered tools are registered with a namespaced format (mcp_<server>_<tool>).
• For OpenClaw plugin usage, ensure the plugin key is mcp-bridge and that autoDiscover is true to read servers from ~/.mcp.json. The plugin config can also specify a servers array with name, transport, command, and args.
• If you see issues starting the standalone server, verify that you are using Node 20.19+ and that the dist/server/index.js entry point exists after the build.
• When debugging tool discovery or calls, use mcp_find_tools to enumerate options and mcp_call_tool with server, tool, and arguments to execute a specific action.