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You can run MCP Gateway locally instead of using the hosted product. The open-source CLI compiles an OpenAPI document and serves MCP tools over Streamable HTTP or stdio. Use it two ways, both first-class:
  • Live API — compile a public OpenAPI document and point the editor at the gateway.
  • WIP / branch API — your server is already on this machine (localhost, a Docker network). Point the gateway at that origin so Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code can exercise the branch you are editing.

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How do I install it?

The project lives on GitHub: Fetch-Hive/openapi-mcp. Install with Homebrew, Docker, npx, the curl installer, or cargo install — the README lists the current commands.

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How do I connect a local or branch API?

  1. Run mcp-gateway init --allow-private-networks so loopback and private networks are allowed.
  2. Add the spec from a file in the repo: mcp-gateway add-spec --name demo --file ./openapi.yaml --base-url http://127.0.0.1:3000 --insecure-http. --base-url is this checkout, not production.
  3. Start mcp-gateway serve demo (default http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp).
  4. Paste mcp-gateway inspect demo --client cursor (or codex, claude-code, vscode) into the editor. The token from init goes in MCP_GATEWAY_TOKEN.
--allow-private-networks is required for localhost. --insecure-http is required when the API speaks HTTP.

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How do I connect a live API?

  1. Run mcp-gateway init (no private-network flag).
  2. mcp-gateway add-spec --name demo --url https://… (or --file plus --base-url https://api.example.com).
  3. mcp-gateway serve demo, then the same inspect --client snippets.
mcp-gateway doctor checks config, secrets, the local IR cache, and the SSRF policy.

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Can I deploy on Render, Heroku, DigitalOcean, or Hetzner?

Yes. The GitHub repo has platform guides and one-click buttons for Render, Heroku, and DigitalOcean App Platform, plus Compose/cloud-init for a Hetzner VPS: openapi-mcp deploy docs. After deploy, point the editor at https://<host>/mcp with the same bearer token. Vercel cannot run this server (it is serverless, not a long-lived process). If you do not want to operate a VPS, use hosted MCP Gateway for a live API. Hosted MCP Gateway does not proxy localhost — use the CLI on your machine for a branch API. Set MCP_GATEWAY_TOKEN and MCP_GATEWAY_SPEC_URL (an HTTPS OpenAPI document). The container reads PORT itself.

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How is this different from hosted MCP Gateway?

Hosted MCP Gateway on Fetch Hive gives you a dashboard, client tokens, plan quotas, and a public /g/{slug} URL for live APIs. Self-hosting keeps the process and secrets on your machine and is how you attach an editor to a local checkout. Binding all interfaces requires --expose. TLS is your reverse proxy’s job.