Introduction

Switchboard is a local MCP gateway. You register your MCP servers once, group them into profiles such as personal, work and acme, and point every AI client at Switchboard instead of at each server. Each client sees only the tools of its profile.

npx mcp-switchboard up

That starts the daemon on http://127.0.0.1:7690 and opens its web UI, where you import the servers you already have, build profiles and connect your clients.

// ~/.cursor/mcp.json: one entry instead of one per server
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "switchboard": { "url": "http://127.0.0.1:7690/p/work/mcp" }
  }
}

Why SwitchboardCopy Anchor Link

• Profiles, not toggles. Stop enabling and disabling servers in every project. Define each set of tools once and point each client at the right one.
• One process per server. Ten clients share one copy of each MCP server. Servers start on the first tool call and stop when idle.
• Instant tool lists. Tool catalogs are cached, so clients get their tools without waiting for servers to start.
• Less context. Large profiles can be served as three search tools, or as a single execute tool where the model writes code that calls tools in a sandbox.
• Connect in one click. Switchboard writes its entry into your client's configuration file and imports the servers you already configured there.
• Local and private. It binds to 127.0.0.1, keeps secrets in your OS keychain when one is available, and needs no account or cloud service.