MCP Servers & External Tools

MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers extend Gemini CLI with external tools. An MCP server is a process that exposes tools, resources, and prompts over a standardized protocol. Gemini CLI connects to these servers and makes their tools available alongside built-in tools. This is how you give Gemini CLI access to databases, APIs, cloud services, and any custom tooling your team has built.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "postgres": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres"],
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://localhost:5432/mydb"
      }
    },
    "github": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "${GITHUB_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Managing MCP servers is done through the gemini mcp subcommands. Add a server with gemini mcp add, list configured servers with gemini mcp list, and remove them with gemini mcp remove. For remote MCP servers, Gemini CLI supports OAuth 2.0 authentication — essential for cloud-hosted tools that require secure access.

# Add an MCP server
gemini mcp add my-server -- npx -y @some/mcp-server

# List configured servers
gemini mcp list

# Remove a server
gemini mcp remove my-server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "includeTools": ["create_pull_request", "list_issues", "get_file_contents"],
      "excludeTools": ["search_code"]
    }
  }
}