mcp-gateway

[](https://pypi.org/project/mcp-unify/) [](LICENSE) [](https://pypi.org/project/mcp-unify/)

Unify multiple MCP servers behind a single endpoint. Lazy loading, auto-cleanup, Python plugins, role-based filtering.

If you use Claude Code or any MCP client with 3+ servers, you get:

• Multiple subprocesses (~50MB each)
• Duplicated config
• No centralized control
• No way to add custom Python tools without a full MCP server

mcp-gateway runs one process that proxies N MCP servers on-demand:

Claude Code / MCP Client
  │
  ▼
mcp-gateway (1 process)
  ├─ [plugin] Python @tool functions     ← in-process, 0 overhead
  ├─ [lazy]   filesystem-server          ← subprocess spawned on first call
  ├─ [lazy]   github-server              ← subprocess spawned on first call
  └─ [lazy]   playwright                 ← subprocess spawned on first call
      ↑
      5 min idle → auto-kill

pip install mcp-gateway

servers:
  filesystem:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/tmp"]

  github:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: "${GITHUB_TOKEN}"
    enabled: false

idle_timeout: 300

stdio (for Claude Code):

mcp-gateway stdio --config gateway.yaml

SSE (for remote clients):

mcp-gateway serve --config gateway.yaml --port 8765

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gateway": {
      "command": "mcp-gateway",
      "args": ["stdio", "--config", "/path/to/gateway.yaml"]
    }
  }
}

Add custom tools with zero boilerplate:

from mcp_gateway import tool

@tool(description="Ad