translate subcommand — Bridge stdio MCP Servers to HTTP/SSE

The translate subcommand bridges any stdio MCP server to HTTP/SSE/Streamable-HTTP transport (issue #769).

Use Cases

• Expose filesystem, git, sqlite, brave-search, or any other stdio-only MCP server over HTTP
• Connect Cursor, Claude Desktop, or any HTTP-first agent to a stdio MCP server
• Run multiple stdio MCP servers behind a single gateway endpoint
• Test stdio MCP servers through standard HTTP tooling

Quick Start

dcc-mcp-server translate \
  --stdio "npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /tmp" \
  --app-type filesystem \
  --port 3333

CLI Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--stdio <cmd>	required	Shell command to launch the stdio MCP server
--app-type <type>	external	Application type label for gateway registration
--expose-streamable-http <bool>	true	Expose Streamable HTTP at /mcp
--expose-sse <bool>	false	Also expose legacy SSE at /sse
--port <N>	0 (OS-assigned)	HTTP listen port
--host <addr>	127.0.0.1	Listen address
--no-register	false	Skip FileRegistry / gateway registration
--restart-on-exit <bool>	true	Restart the stdio process if it exits; pass false to disable supervisor mode
--max-restarts <N>	10	Max supervisor restart attempts before giving up; 0 = unlimited
--gateway-port <N>	9765	Gateway port for registration competition; 0 disables gateway/admin
--no-admin	false	Disable the read-only Admin UI on the elected gateway
--admin-path <path>	/admin	Admin UI URL prefix
--stale-timeout-secs <N>	30	Gateway election stale timeout
--registry-dir <path>	auto	Custom registry directory

Examples

Filesystem MCP server

dcc-mcp-server translate \
  --stdio "npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /home/user/projects" \
  --app-type filesystem \
  --port 4000

Git MCP server with supervisor restart

dcc-mcp-server translate \
  --stdio "uvx mcp-server-git --repository /path/to/repo" \
  --app-type git \
  --port 4001 \
  --max-restarts 10

Standalone (no gateway registration)

dcc-mcp-server translate \
  --stdio "python -m my_mcp_server" \
  --no-register \
  --port 4002

Cursor / Claude Desktop Configuration

Point your AI client at the default Streamable HTTP endpoint:

// .cursor/mcp.json or claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "url": "http://localhost:4000/mcp",
      "transport": "streamable-http"
    },
    "git": {
      "url": "http://localhost:4001/mcp",
      "transport": "streamable-http"
    }
  }
}

For legacy SSE clients, start the bridge with --expose-sse true and point them at /sse:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "url": "http://localhost:4000/sse"
    }
  }
}

Implementation Notes

• Async actor model: one Tokio task owns the child process stdin/stdout with mpsc channel communication
• Concurrent requests: request/response ID tracking supports multiple in-flight calls
• Notifications: JSON messages without id field are forwarded to all connected SSE clients
• Supervisor: exponential back-off between restarts (cap: 30 seconds)
• Gateway registration: when --no-register is absent, the bridge registers as a DCC instance in the gateway election

See also

• gateway.md — gateway registration and election
• tunnel-relay.md — remote relay for external/internet access
• rest-api-surface.md — per-DCC REST API surface