Deployment

Deployment Options

mealie-mcp exposes its MCP server (console script mealie-mcp) four ways. Pick the row that matches where the server runs relative to your MCP client, then copy the matching mcp_config.json below. Replace the <your-…> placeholders with the values from the Configuration / Environment Variables section.

#	Option	Transport	Where it runs	mcp_config.json key
1	stdio	stdio	client launches a subprocess	command
2	Streamable-HTTP (local)	streamable-http	a local network port	command or url
3	Local container / uv	stdio or streamable-http	Docker / Podman / uv on this host	command or url
4	Remote URL	streamable-http	a remote host behind Caddy	url

1. stdio (local subprocess)

The client launches the server over stdio via uvx — best for local IDEs (Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "mealie-mcp", "mealie-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MEALIE_ENDPOINT": "<your-mealie_endpoint>",
        "MEALIE_API_KEY": "<your-mealie_api_key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Streamable-HTTP (local process)

Run the server as a long-lived HTTP process:

uvx --from mealie-mcp mealie-mcp --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
curl -s http://localhost:8000/health        # {"status":"OK"}

Then either let the client launch it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "mealie-mcp", "mealie-mcp", "--transport", "streamable-http", "--port", "8000"],
      "env": {
        "TRANSPORT": "streamable-http",
        "HOST": "0.0.0.0",
        "PORT": "8000",
        "MEALIE_ENDPOINT": "<your-mealie_endpoint>",
        "MEALIE_API_KEY": "<your-mealie_api_key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

…or connect to the already-running process by URL:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": { "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp" }
  }
}

3. Local container / uv

(a) Launch a container directly from mcp_config.json (stdio over the container — no ports to manage). Swap docker for podman for a daemonless runtime:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "TRANSPORT=stdio",
        "-e", "MEALIE_ENDPOINT=<your-mealie_endpoint>",
        "-e", "MEALIE_API_KEY=<your-mealie_api_key>",
        "knucklessg1/mealie-mcp:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

(b) Run a local streamable-http container, then connect by URL:

docker run -d --name mealie-mcp -p 8000:8000 \
  -e TRANSPORT=streamable-http \
  -e PORT=8000 \
  -e MEALIE_ENDPOINT="<your-mealie_endpoint>" \
  -e MEALIE_API_KEY="<your-mealie_api_key>" \
  knucklessg1/mealie-mcp:latest
# or, from a clone of this repo:
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml up -d

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": { "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp" }
  }
}

(c) From a local checkout with uv:

uv run mealie-mcp --transport streamable-http --port 8000

4. Remote URL (deployed behind Caddy)

When the server is deployed remotely (e.g. as a Docker service) and published through Caddy on the internal *.arpa zone, connect with the "url" key — no local process or image required:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mealie-mcp": { "url": "http://mealie-mcp.arpa/mcp" }
  }
}

Caddy reverse-proxies http://mealie-mcp.arpa to the container's :8000 streamable-http listener; http://mealie-mcp.arpa/health returns {"status":"OK"} when the service is live.