openclaw mcp has two jobs:
- run OpenClaw as an MCP server with
openclaw mcp serve - manage OpenClaw-managed outbound MCP server definitions with
list,show,status,doctor,probe,add,set,configure,tools,login,logout,reload, andunset
serve is OpenClaw acting as an MCP server. The other subcommands are OpenClaw acting as an MCP client-side registry for servers its own runtimes may consume later.
list, show, set, and unset only read and write OpenClaw-managed mcp.servers entries in OpenClaw config. They do not include mcporter servers from config/mcporter.json; use mcporter list for that registry.openclaw acp when OpenClaw should host a coding harness session itself and route that runtime through ACP.
Choose the right MCP path
MCP pages
This page is an index.openclaw mcp has six pages, one per reader job. Open
the page that matches your task.
Where each section moved
Every anchor from the previous single-page version still resolves here, so an existing link such as/cli/mcp#bridge-tools keeps working. Each entry points at
the page that now holds the content.
- OpenClaw as an MCP server
- When to use serve
- How it works
- Client spawns the bridge
- Bridge connects to Gateway
- Sessions become MCP conversations
- Live events queue
- Optional Claude push
- Important behavior
- Choose a client mode
- Generic MCP clients
- Claude Code
- What serve exposes
- Usage
- Local Gateway
- Remote Gateway (token)
- Remote Gateway (password)
- Verbose / Claude off
- Bridge tools
- conversations_list
- conversation_get
- messages_read
- attachments_fetch
- events_poll
- events_wait
- messages_send
- permissions_list_open
- permissions_respond
- Event model
- Claude channel notifications
- off
- on
- auto (default)
- MCP client config
- Options
- —url
- —token
- —token-file
- —password
- —password-file
- —claude-channel-mode
- -v, —verbose
- Security and trust boundary
- Testing
- Troubleshooting
- No conversations returned
- events_poll or events_wait misses older messages
- Claude notifications do not show up
- Approvals are missing
- OpenClaw as an MCP client registry
- Important behavior
- Codex tool approvals
- Saved MCP server definitions
- Common server recipes
- Filesystem
- Memory
- Local script
- Remote HTTP
- Desktop/CUA
- JSON output shapes
- status —json
- doctor —json
- probe —json
- Stdio transport
- SSE / HTTP transport
- SSE / HTTP transport
- OAuth workflow
- Save the server
- Start login
- Use the manual fallback when needed
- Check authorization
- Clear credentials
- Streamable HTTP transport
- Control UI
- MCP Apps
- Current limits
Related
- Connect MCP servers
- CLI reference
- Plugins
openclaw attach— launch Claude Code with a temporary session-scoped Gateway MCP grant