MCP Server

Tribal MCP Server

Name: Tribal MCP Server
Author: io.github.tribal-memory

io.github.tribal-memory/tribal

Repository Registry

What is the Tribal MCP server?

Self-hosted semantic memory over MCP for an engineering team's tacit knowledge. Needs Postgres.

How to install Tribal

Copy-paste configuration for popular MCP clients.

transport: stdio

Config generated by PluginBench — verify against the source before use.

Environment / auth

TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL
required
Postgres (pgvector) connection string. Tribal is self-hosted; you provide the database. The supported, complete deployment is docker-compose.yml.
TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE
required
First-run only: the git remote that identifies the project bootstrapped on first start.
TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME
required
First-run only: the name of the project bootstrapped on first start.
TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT
Containerised transport: http or sse. The Docker image does not serve stdio; install the binary for stdio.
TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS
Address the server binds inside the container. Must be 0.0.0.0 (not the loopback default) for the published port to be reachable.
TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL
The URL clients use to reach the server (for example http://127.0.0.1:8725/mcp). Needed for OAuth dynamic client registration once the server binds a routable interface.
OPENAI_API_KEY
secret
Optional; only if an ingest or retrieval stage is configured to use OpenAI (defaults target a local Ollama).
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
secret
Optional; only if a stage is configured to use Anthropic.

Claude Desktop

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tribal": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/tribal-memory/tribal:0.4.1",
        "-p",
        "127.0.0.1:8725:8725"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_DATABASE_URL>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_TRANSPORT>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS>",
        "TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL>",
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY>",
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "<YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tribal": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/tribal-memory/tribal:0.4.1",
        "-p",
        "127.0.0.1:8725:8725"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_DATABASE_URL>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_TRANSPORT>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS>",
        "TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL>",
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY>",
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "<YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tribal": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/tribal-memory/tribal:0.4.1",
        "-p",
        "127.0.0.1:8725:8725"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_DATABASE_URL>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_TRANSPORT>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS>",
        "TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL>",
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY>",
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "<YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "servers": {
    "tribal": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/tribal-memory/tribal:0.4.1",
        "-p",
        "127.0.0.1:8725:8725"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_DATABASE_URL>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE>",
        "TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_TRANSPORT>",
        "TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS>",
        "TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL": "<YOUR_TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL>",
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY>",
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "<YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add tribal --env TRIBAL_DATABASE__URL=<YOUR_TRIBAL_DATABASE_URL> --env TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE=<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_REMOTE> --env TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME=<YOUR_TRIBAL_PROJECT_NAME> --env TRIBAL_SERVER__TRANSPORT=<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_TRANSPORT> --env TRIBAL_SERVER__BIND_ADDRESS=<YOUR_TRIBAL_SERVER_BIND_ADDRESS> --env TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL=<YOUR_TRIBAL_PUBLIC_MCP_URL> --env OPENAI_API_KEY=<YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY> --env ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=<YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY> -- docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/tribal-memory/tribal:0.4.1 -p 127.0.0.1:8725:8725