Command Reference

This section provides detailed documentation for all MCP Standards Server CLI commands.

Command Index

Core Commands

• sync - Synchronize standards from repository
• status - Show sync status and statistics
• cache - Manage local cache
• config - Show or validate configuration
• generate - Generate standards from templates

Planned Commands

The following commands are documented but not yet fully implemented in the CLI:

• query - Query standards based on context (use Python API or MCP server)
• validate - Validate code against standards (available as generate subcommand)
• serve - Start MCP server (use python -m src)

Global Options

These options are available for all commands:

-v, --verbose

Enable verbose output for debugging.

mcp-standards -v sync

-c, --config <path>

Specify a custom configuration file.

mcp-standards -c /path/to/config.yaml sync

--no-color

Disable colored output (useful for CI/CD environments).

mcp-standards --no-color status

--json

Output results in JSON format where applicable.

mcp-standards --json status

-h, --help

Show help message for any command.

mcp-standards --help
mcp-standards sync --help

Exit Codes

The CLI uses standard exit codes:

• 0: Success
• 1: General error
• 2: Command line syntax error
• 3: Configuration error
• 4: Network/sync error
• 5: Validation error

Environment Variables

The following environment variables affect CLI behavior:

• MCP_STANDARDS_CONFIG: Default configuration file path
• MCP_STANDARDS_DATA_DIR: Data directory location
• MCP_STANDARDS_CACHE_DIR: Cache directory location
• MCP_DISABLE_SEARCH: Disable semantic search features
• NO_COLOR: Disable colored output (same as --no-color)
• MCP_LOG_LEVEL: Set logging level (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR)

Configuration Precedence

Configuration is loaded in the following order (later sources override earlier ones):

1. Default configuration
2. System-wide configuration (/etc/mcp-standards/config.yaml)
3. User configuration (~/.config/mcp-standards/config.yaml)
4. Project configuration (./.mcp-standards.yaml)
5. Environment variables
6. Command-line options

Common Patterns

Automated Sync in CI/CD

# In CI/CD pipeline
mcp-standards sync --check || mcp-standards sync --force

Project-Specific Configuration

# Use project-specific config
mcp-standards -c .mcp-standards.yaml sync

JSON Output for Scripting

# Get status as JSON for processing
STATUS=$(mcp-standards --json status)
echo $STATUS | jq '.total_files'

Verbose Debugging

# Debug sync issues
MCP_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG mcp-standards -v sync