Name: MCP Proxy by Tidewave
Author: tidewave-ai

LABSCO SUMMARY

A transport adapter, not a source of tools.

It adds nothing to the tool list — it carries whatever the remote server already offers into a client that only knows how to spawn a local process. Worth knowing before you install it: the protocol version the server announces is not always one the client accepts, which is exactly what the override flag is for.

What it is

A single Rust binary that sits between a STDIO based MCP client and an HTTP based MCP server. It speaks SSE according to the 2024-11-05 specification as well as streamable HTTP according to the 2025-03-26 specification, so a client that can only launch a local command can still reach a server that lives behind a URL.

What you get

A remote MCP server reachable from a stdio-only client: the client's command points at the binary, and the server URL goes in args
Both remote transports covered — SSE per 2024-11-05 and streamable HTTP per 2025-03-26
A way past a version mismatch when the client does not support the version the server sends — --override-protocol-version reports a different one
A bound on reconnection attempts while disconnected — --max-disconnected-time, which defaults to infinity when not set
Debug messages on stderr with --debug
Prebuilt binaries for Apple Silicon and Intel macOS, x86 and aarch64 Linux (musl), and Windows (msvc), plus cargo build --release from source

Requirements

Nothing to sign up for — no account, no key. What it needs is the URL of the SSE MCP server, passed as the argument or set in SSE_URL. The released binaries are not notarized, so a copy downloaded through the browser will not open on macOS; clear the flag with xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/mcp-proxy. Building it yourself needs Rust and cargo, and puts the binary at target/release/mcp-proxy.

Setup effort

One command — curl -sL https://github.com/tidewave-ai/mcp_proxy_rust/releases/latest/download/mcp-proxy-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | tar xv

See installation options

USE CASES

Reaching a hosted MCP server from a client that only speaks stdio

Point the client's command at the binary and pass the server's SSE URL as its argument, or set SSE_URL instead.

Getting past a protocol version the client rejects

Start the proxy with --override-protocol-version so it reports the version the client expects rather than the one the server sent.

Stopping a dropped connection from retrying forever

Set --max-disconnected-time to bound the reconnect window; left unset it retries indefinitely.

Seeing why a connection is not coming up

Add --debug and read the debug messages the proxy writes to stderr.

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

Server setup

Download the prebuilt binary for your platform from the releases page (macOS Apple Silicon / Intel, Linux x86_64 / aarch64 musl, Windows x86_64-msvc) — e.g. curl -sL https://github.com/tidewave-ai/mcp_proxy_rust/releases/latest/download/mcp-proxy-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | tar xv

On macOS, if downloaded via browser, clear quarantine:

TERMINAL

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine <YOUR_PATH_TO_MCP_PROXY>

Alternatively build from source with Rust: cargo build --release (binary ends up at target/release/mcp-proxy)

Point your STDIO MCP client at the binary using the mcpServers config block, passing the SSE URL as the argument

MCP Clients

Claude Desktop — macOS, Linux

CLAUDE DESKTOP — MACOS, LINUX · JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-server": {
      "command": "<YOUR_PATH_TO_MCP_PROXY>",
      "args": [
        "http://localhost:4000/tidewave/mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

MCP Proxy by Tidewave