MCP Client CLI Configuration

This document describes the configuration format for the MCP Client CLI. The configuration file uses JSON format (with support for comments via the commentjson library).

Configuration File Location

The configuration file can be placed in either:

~/.llm/config.json (user's home directory)
mcp-server-config.json (in the current working directory)

Configuration Structure

{
  "systemPrompt": "string",
  "llm": {
    "provider": "string",
    "model": "string",
    "api_key": "string",
    "temperature": float,
    "base_url": "string"
  },
  "mcpServers": {
    "server_name": {
      "command": "string",
      "args": ["string"],
      "env": {
        "ENV_VAR_NAME": "value"
      },
      "enabled": boolean,
      "exclude_tools": ["string"],
      "requires_confirmation": ["string"]
    }
  }
}

Field Specifications

Top-Level Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`systemPrompt`	string	Yes	System prompt for the LLM
`llm`	object	No	LLM configuration
`mcpServers`	object	Yes	Dictionary of MCP server configurations

LLM Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
`provider`	string	No	`"openai"`	LLM provider
`model`	string	No	`"gpt-4o"`	LLM model name
`api_key`	string	No	Environment vars	API key for the LLM service
`temperature`	float	No	`0`	Temperature for LLM responses
`base_url`	string	No	`null`	Custom API endpoint URL

Notes:

The api_key can be omitted if it's set via environment variables LLM_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY

MCP Server Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
`command`	string	Yes	-	Command to run the server
`args`	array	No	`[]`	Command-line arguments
`env`	object	No	`{}`	Environment variables
`enabled`	boolean	No	`true`	Whether the server is enabled
`exclude_tools`	array	No	`[]`	Tool names to exclude
`requires_confirmation`	array	No	`[]`	Tools requiring user confirmation

Example Configuration

{
  "systemPrompt": "You are an AI assistant helping a software engineer...",
  "llm": {
    "provider": "openai",
    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "api_key": "your-api-key-here",
    "temperature": 0
  },
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"]
    },
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-brave-api-key-here"
      }
    },
    "mcp-server-commands": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-commands"],
      "requires_confirmation": [
        "run_command",
        "run_script"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Comments in Configuration

The configuration file supports comments with // syntax:

{
  "systemPrompt": "You are an AI assistant helping a software engineer...",
  // Uncomment this section to use Anthropic Claude
  // "llm": {
  //   "provider": "anthropic",
  //   "model": "claude-3-opus-20240229",
  //   "api_key": "your-anthropic-api-key"
  // },
  "llm": {
    "provider": "openai",
    "model": "gpt-4o",
    "api_key": "your-openai-api-key"
  }
}

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Uh oh!