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ls-mcp is a CLI tool that detects and analyzes configured MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers present in your local development environment. It scans your project directories and nested folders to discover MCP server configurations across multiple providers and formats, surfaces their status, and highlights potential credential exposures in environment variables or API keys. The tool supports several output modes, including JSON, and can show or hide providers with zero configured servers to keep results concise.

To use ls-mcp, run it from your project directory using the npx invocation shown in the README. You can also analyze specific MCP configuration files by passing them with the --files flag, which will auto-detect the MCP structure in each file (supporting keys like servers, mcpServers, mcp.servers, and context_servers). For JSON output and programmatic consumption, use the --json flag. If you want to see every provider, including ones with no configured servers, add --all or -a. Debug output can be enabled by setting NODE_DEBUG, which is useful when diagnosing issues with discovery or parsing of configuration files.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (recommended latest LTS) and npm installed on your system
• Internet access to fetch the package via npm or npx

Installation steps:

1. Quick usage without global install (recommended):

   • Ensure you have Node.js and npm installed.
   • Run: npx ls-mcp

2. If you prefer a global install (optional):

   • Install globally: npm install -g ls-mcp
   • Run: ls-mcp

3. Optional: Install for local project usage (as a dev dependency):

   • Run: npm install --save-dev ls-mcp
   • Run: npx ls-mcp or node ./node_modules/.bin/ls-mcp

Prerequisites recap:

• Node.js and npm must be available in your environment
• Internet access to fetch the package from npm registry

Notes and tips:

• The tool detects multiple MCP configuration formats, including servers, mcpServers, mcp.servers, and context_servers, to accommodate different project setups.
• Use --files to analyze specific MCP config files and ensure the output focuses only on the chosen files.
• When using --files, providers with zero servers are shown by default for those specific files, as per the flag’s semantics.
• For automation, prefer the JSON output (--json) to integrate with CI pipelines or other tooling.
• If you encounter issues with discovery, enable verbose debugging by setting NODE_DEBUG=ls-mcp or NODE_DEBUG=* to get more detailed logs.