hypnosis/ssh-mcp-server

An SSH MCP server — a multitool that saves you and your AI agent time and tokens on debugging, development and server maintenance.
Run commands, move files, read logs and audit machines over SSH — a cloud VPS, a bare-metal box, or the BusyBox router sitting in your closet.
It uses the OpenSSH client already on your machine: your keys, your ~/.ssh/config, your jump hosts, your agent forwarding. Nothing bundled, nothing to compile, no native bindings.
Works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cline, opencode, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Hermes and other MCP clients.
**Install · Tools · Setup · Security · Roadmap · Docs · Changelog**
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Install in 30 seconds
No global installation required. npx downloads the package on first use:
Add it to your MCP client — **Claude Code**, for example — for every project:
Or write it by hand — the same server in the config shape most clients share:
Then create ~/.claude/ssh-profiles.json with at least one machine:
That is enough to connect.
Codex, opencode, Qwen Code and other clients are covered in
Set up the SSH MCP server.
Install as a plugin
Some clients — **Claude Code**, for example — can take the whole thing as a plugin instead:
The plugin reads ~/.claude/ssh-profiles.json unless SSH_PROFILES_FILE says otherwise, so
create that file first and the server comes up with your machines already loaded.
Requirements
**Node.js 18+** and a system ssh client on PATH. On Windows, use a key-based profile;
password and passphrase profiles are not currently available.
Prefer a pinned version, offline work, or one less registry check per launch:
npm install -g @hypnosis/ssh-mcp-server, then use ssh-mcp-server as the command instead
of npx.
Who this is for
- **DevOps and SREs** who want faster audits, incident checks and routine server work.
- **Vibe coders and indie builders** who ship with an AI assistant and run what they build
on their own servers.
- **Sysadmins and platform engineers** who want structured tools instead of an unrestricted
raw shell.
- **Developers and small teams running their own VPS** without a dedicated operations team.
- **Homelab, NAS and router owners** whose useful hardware has outlived its modern protocols.
Why an SSH MCP server instead of a raw shell
Fewer tokens, lower AI costs
A raw shell gives an AI agent a firehose: repeated commands, ASCII tables and log dumps.
It burns tokens turning that noise into a picture of the server — your money.
Faster server debugging
Purpose-built tools batch routine checks, cap noisy output and return the part that matters.
The agent spends less time translating terminal output and gets to the fix sooner.
Less guesswork, fewer AI mistakes
Structured answers say what was found, what could not be measured and what was truncated.
That leaves the agent less room to fill gaps with a hallucination — and gives you fewer bad
fixes, calmer deploys and more reliable code.
SSH compatibility: modern servers, legacy gear and Windows
Use your existing OpenSSH setup
No bundled SSH implementation, no native bindings, no rebuild per platform. Commands ride the
system ssh client, so your keys, your ~/.ssh/config, your jump hosts and your agent
forwarding all keep working exactly as they do in a terminal. When supported, one shared
multiplexed connection per destination means you authenticate once, not once per command.
SSH support for legacy servers, routers and NAS devices
Send a file to a router with a modern scp and you get this:
Nothing is broken — a current scp speaks the new protocol, and the router does not know it.
In a terminal you now go read a forum thread and come back with an extra flag. Here you do
nothing: the transfer is tried, the refusal is recognized, the old protocol is used instead,
and that machine is remembered so the next file goes straight there.
**Fallbacks for older SSH clients and missing tools**
Old gear gets a fallback, not a dead end. When a modern feature is missing, the server takes