interactive

interactive-mcp is a Node.js/TypeScript MCP server that enables interactive communication between a language model and a local user. It exposes tools such as request_user_input to solicit user input (with optional predefined options), message_complete_notification to trigger a simple OS notification, and a set of intensive_chat commands (start_intensive_chat, ask_intensive_chat, stop_intensive_chat) to manage a persistent command-line chat session. This setup is designed to run locally alongside an MCP client (e.g., Claude Desktop or VS Code) so the LLM can prompt the user, display notifications, and execute commands on the host machine as part of the conversation. To use it, configure your MCP client to point to the interactive-mcp MCP server via npx, providing any desired CLI flags to tailor behavior such as timeouts or enabled tools.

When interacting with the server, you can trigger a normal user prompt or a completion notification from the LLM, and you can initiate or participate in an intensive chat session for ongoing, context-rich command-line interactions. This is particularly useful for interactive setup, configuration tasks, or facilitating direct user feedback during code generation or modification. You can also disable certain tools via command-line flags in the MCP client configuration if you want to limit the LLM’s interactions with the host environment.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (check compatibility in package.json)
• pnpm (recommended package manager) or npm

Installation (Developers / Running locally):

1. Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/ttommyth/interactive-mcp.git cd interactive-mcp

2. Install dependencies pnpm install

3. Start the server pnpm start

If you prefer using npm directly, you can install dependencies and run with npm scripts if available in the package.json (e.g., npm install followed by npm run start). The README indicates pnpm as the primary workflow, with pnpm build / lint / format available for development. Ensure you have pnpm installed globally: npm install -g pnpm.

Tips and notes:

• The default user input timeout is 30 seconds; you can adjust this via the -t/--timeout option in the MCP client configuration.
• You can disable specific tools with -d/--disable-tools, listing tool names like request_user_input, message_complete_notification, or intensive_chat.
• When using macOS Terminal.app, there are recommended profiles to manage shell windows during startup and shutdown of the MCP server.
• The server is intended for local usage alongside a client; running it in a remote environment may require additional considerations for OS notifications and terminal access.
• If you need a specific version of the package, you can reference interactive-mcp@x.y.z in the npx arguments (e.g., ["-y", "interactive-mcp@1.9.0"]).