MCP Auto-detection

Claude Code uses the Model Context Protocol to talk to external servers (HTTP/SSE or stdio). HTTP/SSE servers need their port reachable from inside the container. ccpod handles this for you.

How it works

If the project root contains a .mcp.json and the profile has ports.autoDetectMcp: true (default), ccpod parses the file at startup, extracts every HTTP/SSE entry, and adds the corresponding port mappings to the container spec.

.mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8765"
    },
    "git": {
      "type": "sse",
      "url": "http://localhost:8766/sse"
    }
  }
}

Both 8765 and 8766 are exposed automatically. No ports.list entry needed.

Disable it

ports:
  autoDetectMcp: false

Or list ports manually:

ports:
  list:
    - "8765:8765"

stdio MCP servers

stdio MCP servers don’t need port forwarding — they’re spawned as child processes by Claude. They do need their runtime binary inside the container.

• npx-based MCPs (@modelcontextprotocol/server-*, etc.) just work because the base image bundles Node.js.
• Other runtimes (Python, Go, custom binaries) require a custom image. Set image.use: build in the profile and add the runtime to your Dockerfile.

Inspecting the result

ccpod config show

The ports: section in the resolved config lists every mapping ccpod will hand to Docker — manual + auto-detected combined.