MCP server that gives AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf) real interactive terminal sessions — REPLs, SSH, databases, Docker, and any interactive CLI with clean output and smart completion detection

mcp-interactive-terminal

MCP server that gives AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.) real interactive terminal sessions. Run REPLs, SSH, database clients, and any interactive CLI — with clean text output, smart completion detection, and 7-layer security.

Why This Exists

AI coding agents can't handle interactive commands. There's no PTY, no stdin streaming. You can't run rails console, python, psql, ssh, or any REPL through them. This MCP server fixes that.

AI Agent (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.)
    ↕  MCP (JSON-RPC over stdio)
mcp-interactive-terminal
    ↕  node-pty + xterm-headless
Interactive Process (rails console, python, psql, ssh, bash...)
    ↕
Clean text output (exactly what a human would see)

Install

Claude Code

Claude MCP add terminal -- npx -y mcp-interactive-terminal

That's it. The server is now available. Ask Cursor to "open a python REPL and calculate 2**100".

Cursor

Go to Settings > MCP Servers, click Add Server, and enter:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-interactive-terminal"]
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Add to your MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terminal": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-interactive-terminal"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

Add to your .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "terminal": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-interactive-terminal"]
    }
  }
}

Any MCP Client

The server communicates over stdio using the [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/