local-logs

The Local Logs MCP Server provides real-time tailing, search, and monitoring capabilities for log files stored on your machine. It discovers log files in a configurable directory, tail the last N lines, surfaces recent errors, and offers a server status based on log analysis. Tools exposed by the server include get_log_files to list available logs, tail_log to fetch the last N lines of a specific log, get_errors for recent error entries, get_server_status for a quick health summary, watch_log to monitor a file for changes, and search_logs to query text patterns across logs. The MCP interface is designed to work with various MCP clients (Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code Copilot, Windsurf, and more), enabling natural-language commands like pulling recent errors, checking server status, or searching for a term across log files. To get started, configure the MCP client with the local-logs server and point the LOGS_DIR to where your logs reside. Once running, you can issue commands such as “Show me the last 50 lines from error.log” or “Search logs for 'database connection'.”

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 14 or higher installed on your system
• npm (comes with Node.js) or yarn

Installation options:

1. One-Command Setup (Recommended)

• Linux/macOS: curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mariosss/local-logs-mcp-server/main/install-new.js | node
• Windows (PowerShell): Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mariosss/local-logs-mcp-server/main/install-new.js" | Invoke-Expression
• This downloads the server file and configures Cursor automatically. Restart Cursor afterward.

2. Two-Command Setup

npm install -g https://github.com/mariosss/local-logs-mcp-server
local-logs-setup

3. Manual Setup

npm install -g local-logs-mcp-server
local-logs-setup

4. NPX Usage (No Installation)

npx local-logs-mcp-server

5. Manual Installation (from source)

git clone https://github.com/mariosss/local-logs-mcp-server.git
cd local-logs-mcp-server
npm install -g .

Note: After installation, ensure your MCP client config points to the server using the npx approach as demonstrated in the mcp_config example.

Environment variables and configuration tips:

• LOGS_DIR: Directory containing log files. Defaults to auto-detection if not set, but you can explicitly set it to point to your logs folder (e.g., ./logs or /var/log).
• LOG_EXTENSIONS: Comma-separated list of log file extensions the server should consider (default: .log,.txt).
• The server is read-only and operates locally, with no network access beyond client communication via MCP.
• If you encounter a “logs directory not found” issue, set LOGS_DIR explicitly to the correct path. If you see “no log files found,” verify the directory contains files with the configured extensions.
• For Cursor/Claude/VS Code configurations, you can embed LOGS_DIR in your MCP config for consistent behavior across editors.
• The MCP server supports real-time watching and searching across logs, which can be useful for alerting on errors or monitoring for changes.