Documentation structure for LLMs (llms.txt)
CircleCI Logo

Connecting to the CircleCI CLI MCP

5 hours ago
Cloud Server v4+

The CircleCI CLI includes a built-in MCP server that runs locally on your machine, using your existing CLI authentication. For a comparison with CircleCI’s hosted MCP server, see the Hosted and CLI MCP Comparison section of the CircleCI MCP overview page.

Prerequisites

  • The CircleCI CLI installed. See the CircleCI CLI page for installation instructions.

  • An authenticated CLI session. Run circleci auth login, or set the CIRCLE_TOKEN environment variable.

Enable the CLI MCP

Enable the MCP server for your AI assistant with one command:

circleci mcp claude enable    # Claude Desktop
circleci mcp cursor enable    # Cursor
circleci mcp vscode enable    # VS Code

To disable it, replace enable with disable.

You can also start the server manually, or stream it over HTTP instead of the default stdio transport:

circleci mcp start     # start over stdio
circleci mcp stream    # stream over HTTP

Try it out

Once enabled, ask your AI assistant something like:

  • What failed on my last run?

  • Validate my CircleCI config.

  • List the environment variables set on this project.

  • Create and publish a new orb version.

  • Show me the resource classes for my self-hosted runners.

  • Purge the Docker Layer Cache for this project.

Next steps