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Smithery CLI

Package manager for MCP servers and agent skills

Smithery is a CLI tool and registry for discovering, installing, and managing MCP servers and agent skills. It lets developers search thousands of available servers, install them with one command, inspect available tools, and connect their AI coding agents to external capabilities through the Model Context Protocol standard.

About Smithery CLI

Smithery addresses a critical gap in the MCP ecosystem: discoverability and management. As the number of MCP servers has exploded past 5,500+ in community registries, finding the right server for a specific task and configuring it correctly has become increasingly difficult. Smithery provides a curated registry with search, categorization, and usage statistics, plus a CLI that handles installation, configuration, and connection management for MCP servers across different AI client environments.

The CLI supports key operations that developers need in their daily agentic workflows: searching the registry for servers by functionality, installing servers with automatic dependency resolution, listing installed servers and their available tools, and calling individual tools for testing. This makes Smithery function as the 'npm for MCP servers' — a package manager that brings order to a rapidly growing ecosystem of agent capabilities.

With 620+ GitHub stars and growing adoption as the MCP ecosystem matures, Smithery fills an essential infrastructure role. It integrates with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible clients, providing a centralized way to manage the expanding set of tools and data sources that AI agents need to access. The registry includes servers for databases, cloud services, developer platforms, browser automation, and specialized domain tools.

Pricing & Platform Specs

Pricing Summary

Free and 100% open-source CLI toolkit under the MIT license ($0 software cost). smithery-cli enables searching, installing, and configuring MCP servers across local AI clients for free. The Smithery.ai public registry is free to access, with optional paid hosted cloud deployment tiers (Hobby, Pro, Enterprise) for server hosting.

full pricing breakdown →

Supported Platforms

CLI, Web registry, Claude Desktop, Cursor integration

Explore categories, tags & use cases

Official debugger for MCP server development

MCP Inspector is the official interactive developer tool from the Model Context Protocol team for testing, debugging, and validating MCP servers. It provides a visual interface to inspect available tools, test transport configurations, export configs for different clients, and verify protocol compliance during MCP server development.

Open Source

Tool platform for AI agents

Arcade AI is an MCP runtime platform for secure agent authorization, reliable tool execution, and governance. It enables enterprises to deploy authenticated AI agents across Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, and 100+ other services without managing OAuth complexity or token refresh cycles. Arcade provides a centralized authorization layer that handles authentication, permission scoping, and compliance for every tool call an agent makes.

freemiumOpen Source

Community experience

Sources & verification

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Content verified

Verification dates are editorial checks. Routine CMS saves and automatic updatedAt timestamps do not advance them.

FAQ

What is Smithery CLI?

Smithery is a CLI tool and registry for discovering, installing, and managing MCP servers and agent skills. It lets developers search thousands of available servers, install them with one command, inspect available tools, and connect their AI coding agents to external capabilities through the Model Context Protocol standard.

Is Smithery CLI free?

Yes — Smithery CLI is open source and free to use. Free and 100% open-source CLI toolkit under the MIT license ($0 software cost). smithery-cli enables searching, installing, and configuring MCP servers across local AI clients for free. The Smithery.ai public registry is free to access, with optional paid hosted cloud deployment tiers (Hobby, Pro, Enterprise) for server hosting.

Is Smithery CLI open source?

Yes — Smithery CLI is open source.

Is Smithery CLI still maintained?

Yes — Smithery CLI is active. Its listing was last verified on September 6, 2026.

What are the best Smithery CLI alternatives?

The first editor-selected Smithery CLI alternatives are MCP Inspector, Arcade AI.