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Monitor and manage MCP servers

Monitoring​

ToolHive provides visibility into the status of your MCP servers. You can check the status of running servers and view their logs using the ToolHive CLI.

List running servers​

To see all currently running MCP servers:

thv list

This shows the server name, package, status, url, port, tool type, group, and created at. Remote servers display their target URL in the URL column. The word 'remote' is indicated in both the package and tool type columns, making it easy to identify remote servers.

To include stopped servers in the list:

thv list --all

View server logs​

Containerized servers​

To view the logs of a running or stopped containerized MCP server, use the thv logs command. You can optionally follow the logs with the --follow option, which shows the most recent log entries and updates in real time.

thv logs <SERVER_NAME> [--follow]

Remote servers​

The thv logs command only works with local containers. For remote MCP servers, there’s no container to read logs from, so you’ll need to check the log files directly in the ToolHive application directory. The path depends on your platform:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/toolhive/logs/<SERVER_NAME>.log
  • Linux: ~/.local/share/toolhive/logs/<SERVER_NAME>.log

The specific log file path is displayed when you start a server with thv run.

Lifecycle management​

MCP servers can be started, stopped, restarted, and removed using the ToolHive CLI. The commands are similar to Docker commands, but they're designed to work with the ToolHive CLI and MCP servers.

Stop a server​

To stop a running MCP server:

thv stop <SERVER_NAME>

This stops the server and the associated proxy process, removes the MCP server's entry from your configured clients, but keeps the container for future use. For remote servers, this terminates the proxy process but preserves the configuration.

Add the --group flag to stop all servers in a specific group:

thv stop --group <GROUP_NAME>

Add the --all flag to stop all running servers.

Restart a server​

To restart a stopped MCP server and add it back to your configured clients:

thv restart <SERVER_NAME>

For remote servers, restarting will:

  1. Recreate the proxy process
  2. Re-establish connection to the remote server
  3. Re-authenticate with the remote server (triggers new OAuth flow)

Add the --group flag to restart all servers in a specific group:

thv restart --group <GROUP_NAME>

Remove a server​

To remove an MCP server:

thv rm <SERVER_NAME>

This removes the container and cleans up the MCP server's entry in your configured clients. If the server is still running, it will be stopped as part of the removal. For remote servers, this removes the proxy process, configuration, and stored authentication tokens.

Add the --group flag to remove all servers in a specific group:

thv rm --group <GROUP_NAME>
note

If you use docker rm to remove an MCP container that ToolHive created, it won't clean up the MCP server's entry in your configured clients. Use thv rm to make sure the entry is removed.

Remote server authentication​

Remote servers with OAuth authentication will automatically refresh tokens when they expire during normal operation. However, restarting a remote server always triggers a new OAuth authentication flow:

thv restart <REMOTE_SERVER_NAME>

This will always prompt for re-authentication, even if valid tokens exist.