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Dexto Agents as MCP Servers

Any Dexto agent can also act as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, enabling external tools like Cursor/Claude Desktop or any MCP client to connect and interact with your Dexto agent.

This means you can even connect one Dexto agent to another Dexto agent!

You can use any of our pre-installed Dexto Agents (music-agent, database-agent, podcast-agent, etc.), or use your own yml config file as well

Check out our Configuration guide to configure your own agent

Prerequisites​

  • Install the Dexto CLI globally (pnpm install -g dexto, npm install -g dexto)
  • Run dexto at least once so the setup flow can capture your provider credentials. Dexto stores secrets in ~/.dexto/.env, so you no longer need to pass API keys through environment variables.

Local MCP Server Guide​

Start the MCP server​

Run Dexto in MCP mode to expose your agent over stdio:

dexto --mode mcp --auto-approve

During startup Dexto reads secrets from .dexto/.env, so your LLM credentials travel with your profile—no additional environment variables are required.

Connect an MCP client​

Most MCP-compatible clients expect a command plus optional arguments. A minimal configuration looks like:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dexto": {
      "command": "dexto",
      "args": ["--mode", "mcp", "--auto-approve"]
    }
  }
}

Just the dexto section for easy copying:

"dexto": {
  "command": "dexto",
  "args": ["--mode", "mcp", "--auto-approve"]
}

Use --agent if you want to expose a specific agent (installed or from file):

"dexto": {
  "command": "dexto",
  "args": ["--agent", "music-agent", "--mode", "mcp", "--auto-approve"]
}

Need debug logs? Add DEXTO_LOG_LEVEL env variable

"dexto": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "dexto", "--mode", "mcp", "--agent", "music-agent"],
  "env": { "DEXTO_LOG_LEVEL": "debug" }
}

Logs will be stored in ~/.dexto/logs/dexto.log

Looking for Cursor-specific instructions? See Using Dexto Agents in Cursor.

Once connected, clients gain access to the agent tools defined in your configuration (filesystem, web browsing, custom MCP servers, etc.).

Remote MCP Server Guide​

Need to run your dexto agent as a remote MCP server?

Step 1: Start Dexto in Server Mode​

dexto --mode server

Options:

# Custom port using environment variable
API_PORT=8080 dexto --mode server

# Custom port for network access
API_PORT=3001 dexto --mode server

# Enable debug logging
dexto --mode server --debug

Step 2: Configure the Connection URL​

HTTP MCP Endpoint:

http://localhost:3001/mcp

For network access:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3001/mcp

Remote client limitations​

Some MCP clients (including Cursor and Claude Desktop today) do not yet support streaming HTTP connections. For those clients, prefer the local stdio transport covered above.

Troubleshooting​

Issues in Cursor:

  • Check Dexto logs - ~/.dexto/logs/dexto.log
  • Run agent in debug mode
  • Reach out for support on Truffle AI discord

Debug mode:

# If installed globally
dexto --mode mcp --debug