Skip to content

🐍 Local Deployment

This guide walks you through running MCP Gateway on your local machine using a virtual environment or directly via Python.

🚀 One-Liner Setup

The easiest way to start the server in development mode:

make venv install-dev serve

This does the following:

  1. Creates a .venv/ virtual environment
  2. Installs all dependencies (including dev tools)
  3. Launches Gunicorn on http://localhost:4444

🧪 Development Mode with Live Reload

If you want auto-reload on code changes:

make dev        # hot-reload (Uvicorn) on :8000
# or:
./run.sh --reload --log debug

Ensure your .env file includes:

DEV_MODE=true
RELOAD=true
DEBUG=true

🗄 Database Configuration

By default, MCP Gateway uses SQLite for simplicity. You can configure alternative databases via the DATABASE_URL environment variable:

# .env file
DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///./mcp.db

# .env file
DATABASE_URL=mysql+pymysql://mysql:changeme@localhost:3306/mcp

MariaDB Setup

Install and configure MariaDB server: 

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install mariadb-server

# Create database and user
sudo mariadb -e "CREATE DATABASE mcp;"
sudo mariadb -e "CREATE USER 'mysql'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'changeme';"
sudo mariadb -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON mcp.* TO 'mysql'@'localhost';"
sudo mariadb -e "FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"


# .env file
DATABASE_URL=mysql+pymysql://mysql:changeme@localhost:3306/mcp

MySQL Setup

Install and configure MySQL server: 

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install mysql-server

# Create database and user
sudo mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE mcp;"
sudo mysql -e "CREATE USER 'mysql'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'changeme';"
sudo mysql -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON mcp.* TO 'mysql'@'localhost';"
sudo mysql -e "FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"


# .env file
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:changeme@localhost:5432/mcp

MariaDB & MySQL Full Compatibility

MariaDB and MySQL are fully supported with:

  • 36+ database tables working perfectly with MariaDB 12.0+ and MySQL 8.4+
  • All VARCHAR length issues resolved for MariaDB/MySQL compatibility
  • Complete feature parity with SQLite and PostgreSQL

🧪 Health Test

curl http://localhost:4444/health

Expected output:

{"status": "healthy"}

🔐 Admin UI

Visit http://localhost:4444/admin and login using your BASIC_AUTH_USER and BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD from .env.

🔁 Quick JWT Setup

export MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN=$(python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token -u admin@example.com)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" http://localhost:4444/tools