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MCP servers

Hive speaks Model Context Protocol — the spec for LLM tool servers Anthropic standardized. Each MCP server is a separate process (or HTTP endpoint) that exposes named tools the agent can call.

Use MCP when you want to:

  • Surface a new tool to your agents (file-system, HTTP, database, proprietary internal API).
  • Share a tool set across many agents and workspaces.
  • Run a long-lived tool process separately from Hive.

Settings — Tools & MCP

Don't use MCP when:

  • You want a whole agent (wire a CLI-agent runtime instead — aider, pi, or Claude Code; see BYO agents).

Configuration

[[mcp_servers]]
id = "filesystem"
transport = "stdio"
command = "/usr/local/bin/mcp-filesystem"
args = ["--workspace", "."]
enabled = false

Or HTTP:

[[mcp_servers]]
id = "github"
transport = "http"
url = "https://mcp.example.com"
enabled = false
Field What
id Workspace-unique identifier
transport stdio or http
command / args For stdio — Hive spawns it
url For HTTP — the endpoint Hive talks to
enabled Inert until true (default false); enabling launches/connects it

Install from the internet

You don't have to hand-edit TOML. In the right-rail Tools pane, Install from the internet fetches a server's JSON manifest and adds it to a per-workspace catalog (.hive/mcp-servers.json). Accepted references:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/owner/repo/main/server.json
https://github.com/owner/repo/blob/main/server.json   # blob URLs become raw
owner/repo/path/server.json                            # shorthand, ref defaults to main

The manifest can be a flat object or the Claude-desktop shape:

{ "id": "git", "transport": "stdio", "command": "uvx", "args": ["mcp-server-git"] }

{ "mcpServers": { "git": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["mcp-server-git"] } } }

An http server uses url (or endpoint) instead of command:

{ "name": "remote", "url": "https://mcp.example/sse" }

Install is inert — enabling launches it

Installing never runs anything

A freshly installed server is disabled. Hive does not touch its command or endpoint until you flip Enable. Enabling is the step that launches a stdio command or connects to an endpoint — only enable servers you trust.

Enabling registers the server with the live runtime so its tools connect; disabling reverses that; Remove deletes it from the workspace catalog. Enablement is per server — an enabled server exposes all of its tools to the model. To narrow what an agent can reach, enable only the servers whose tools you want available (or split a broad tool set across separate servers).

Remote MCP servers (OAuth)

Beyond stdio and static-token http servers, Hive speaks the modern Streamable-HTTP transport with OAuth 2.1 + PKCE — for hosted MCP services that authenticate you in the browser and hand back short-lived, auto-refreshing tokens. There's a one-click Add Linear (issues) preset and a per-server Connect button that runs the browser flow (loopback redirect http://127.0.0.1:51736/callback).

See Linear & remote MCP servers (OAuth) for the full walkthrough, including creating a Linear OAuth app and the /linear composer command.

Health & status

The Tools pane shows MCP connectivity:

  • Green: all enabled servers connected.
  • Warm tint: some connected, some failed.
  • Gray: none enabled.

Open the Tools pane (the Tools toggle in the chat header) to inspect per-server status.