mcpc is a command-line client for the Model Context Protocol, giving shell commands access to MCP servers' tools, resources, prompts, skills, and other operations. Developers and AI agents use it to inspect, debug, and script MCP workflows through standard shell pipelines, with the catalogue add-ons supporting its use in agent workflows.
Getting it into your agent
It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/apify/mcpcnpx agentmods add skills/apify/mcpc/record-demoWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/apify/mcpc/record-demo)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/apify/mcpc/record-demo"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/apify/mcpc/record-demo/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/apify/mcpc/record-demo"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/apify/mcpc/record-demo.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00114 | $0.03679 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00046 | $0.01472 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00023 | $0.00736 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00011 | $0.00368 |
Grade B, and why
record-demo scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Reads MCP configurationmediumAgent snooping
mcp.json carries server URLs and auth tokens; reading it lets a mod discover and abuse other integrations.
| `security.tape` | Auto-discovery skipping a checked-in `.mcp.json` entry that reads `${GITHUB_TOKEN}` (fixture: `security.mcp.json`, copied into a `mktemp -d` HOME so no real configs are discovered); needs `mcp.example How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 238 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
record-demo: VHS demo GIFs for mcpc
The tapes in docs/vhs/*.tape are VHS
scripts that drive a real shell session — VHS types each command, runs it
against a live MCP server, captures the terminal, and renders a GIF. The README
hero is docs/images/mcpc-demo.gif, built from docs/vhs/mcpc-demo.tape.
This file is the accumulated know-how. Read all of it before touching a tape — most rules below were discovered by hitting the wall, and skipping them wastes whole render cycles (~1–2 min each).
The hero flow (mcpc-demo.tape)
A basic-use story across both transports:
mcpc— empty state (no sessions, no profiles)mcpc connect mcp.json:filesystem— local stdio server (auto-names@filesystem)mcpc— session list (now shows the live session)mcpc @filesystem tools-listmcpc @filesystem tools-list --json— JSON output, syntax-highlighted, no jqmcpc connect mcp.apify.com -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"— remote HTTP server (auto-names@apify)mcpc @apify tools-listmcpc @apify tools-get search-actors— inspect one tool's input schemamcpc @apify tools-call search-actors keywords:="web scraper" limit:=3mcpc @apify close
Ten commands run ~45s; there is no hard 30s cap for this flow.
Style conventions (the current standard — match these)
- No
# commentsin the visible script. The commands are self-descriptive. - No
| head, no2>/dev/nullon visible commands. Show real output even if long — it scrolls naturally. (connect≈ 86 lines incl. an "Available commands" list,tools-call search-actors≈ 56, filesystemtools-list --json≈ 300.) - Continuous session — never
clearbetween steps. Put a single blank-lineEnterbefore each command (after the first) so it's separated from the previous output, like a real terminal session. - Colored prompt + bold-white typed commands. In the hidden setup block:
Type 'export PS1="\[\e[1;38;2;25;230;77m\]$\[\e[0m\] \[\e[1;97m\]"' Enter Type "trap 'tput sgr0' DEBUG" EnterPS1is a bold bright-green$, then ends with\[\e[1;97m\]so the typed input renders bold bright-white.- The
DEBUGtrap runstput sgr0before every command so the bold-white input does not bleed into command output.
- Empty state needs a clean home — hidden:
Type 'export MCPC_HOME_DIR="$(mktemp -d)"'somcpcshows "No active MCP sessions / No OAuth profiles". - Color is automatic for non-piped commands — mcpc detects the TTY and emits
color (256-color, plenty vivid). You only need
export FORCE_COLOR=3(+COLORTERM=truecolorfor exact hex) when a command is piped (mcpc turns color off when stdout isn't a TTY). The current tapes avoid pipes, so they don't need it. (The CLI palette lives insrc/cli/output.ts,RAINBOW_SATURATION, bumped to 78% for vividness — that's where the demo colors come from.)
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago Changed · +21 lines scan A → B 4b18cebb0d9d
- 2mo ago First seen · 217 lines · 114 tokens per session scan A 4fcb08ff7eca
record-demo is a skill published in the GitHub repository apify/mcpc (1,081 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 114 tokens to every session and 3,679 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads mcp configuration). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
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