Deployment

Deployment Options

rom-manager exposes its MCP server (console script rom-manager-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. Add the service-connection environment variables documented in the Configuration 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": {
    "rom-manager-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "rom-manager", "rom-manager-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

2. Streamable-HTTP (local process)

Run the server as a long-lived HTTP process:

uvx --from rom-manager rom-manager-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": {
    "rom-manager-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "rom-manager", "rom-manager-mcp", "--transport", "streamable-http", "--port", "8000"],
      "env": {
        "TRANSPORT": "streamable-http",
        "HOST": "0.0.0.0",
        "PORT": "8000"
      }
    }
  }
}

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rom-manager-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": {
    "rom-manager-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "TRANSPORT=stdio",
        "knucklessg1/rom-manager:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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

docker run -d --name rom-manager-mcp -p 8000:8000 \
  -e TRANSPORT=streamable-http \
  -e PORT=8000 \
  knucklessg1/rom-manager:latest
# or, from a clone of this repo:
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml up -d

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

(c) From a local checkout with uv:

uv run rom-manager-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": {
    "rom-manager-mcp": { "url": "http://rom-manager-mcp.arpa/mcp" }
  }
}

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

Console scripts

Script	Entrypoint	Purpose
rom-manager	rom_manager.rom_manager:rom_manager	Local CLI converter
rom-manager-mcp	rom_manager.mcp_server:mcp_server	MCP server
rom-manager-agent	rom_manager.agent_server:agent_server	A2A agent server

Transports

rom-manager-mcp                                              # stdio (default)
rom-manager-mcp --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
rom-manager-mcp --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

Docker

The prebuilt image knucklessg1/rom-manager ships with chdman (mame-tools) and 7z (p7zip-full) so conversions work out of the box. Mount your ROM directory and set ROM_DIRECTORY.

docker run --rm -it \
  -v /games:/games -e ROM_DIRECTORY=/games \
  -p 8000:8000 -e TRANSPORT=streamable-http \
  knucklessg1/rom-manager:latest

Docker Compose

docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml up -d     # MCP only
docker compose -f docker/agent.compose.yml up -d   # MCP + agent

RVZ output

dolphin-tool is not packaged in the slim image. Install it into the container (or a derived image) if you need RVZ output.