Harbor
About
Native macOS app that boots all your local dev servers with one button: smart port allocation, crash recovery, live resource monitoring, and an in-process MCP server so Claude/Codex can drive your dev environment.
Details
- Author
- luke-fairbanks
- Downloads
- 384
- Categories
- Developer Tools
Jump to
- One-button start with a topo-sorted dependency order and live log streaming
- Port intelligence: preferred then next-free allocation, probed on both IPv4 and IPv6, with ${PORT} placeholders resolved across services
- Detects and adopts already-running servers, so it never double-starts into EADDRINUSE
- Auto-restart on crash (opt-in per app) with bounded backoff and native notifications
- Live CPU and memory per service, in the window and the menu bar popover
- Embedded MCP server on 127.0.0.1 with a per-install bearer token
Setting up with Highlight
This MCP is not yet compatible with Highlight’s one-click setup. However, you can still use it with Highlight by following these steps:
- Download and install Highlight from highlightai.com/download
- Navigate to the plugins tab and select "Add Custom Plugin"
-
Configure the plugin with the settings below
Plugin Name
HarborCommand (node, npx, python, etc.)Please refer to the README for specific instructions on how to obtain API keys or other required environment variables.
- Enable "Start Automatically" if you want the plugin to start when Highlight launches
From the repository
Install the signed and notarized dmg from GitHub Releases (or brew install --cask luke-fairbanks/tap/harbor), drag a project folder onto the window, and Harbor proposes the run config. Open the Connect your Claude screen for one-click MCP setup of Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or Codex.
Claude Desktop / Cursor
Paste into your MCP client config file to install this server.
{
"mcpServers": {
"harbor": {
"harbor": {
"type": "http",
"url": "http://127.0.0.1:7777/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer <token from Harbor's Connect screen>"
}
}
}
}
}McpServers
{
"harbor": {
"type": "http",
"url": "http://127.0.0.1:7777/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer <token from Harbor's Connect screen>"
}
}
}Harbor is a native macOS app that boots all the local servers a project needs with one button: topo-sorted start order, smart port allocation probed on both IPv4 and IPv6, crash recovery with bounded backoff, live logs, and per-service CPU and memory in a menu bar popover.
It ships with an embedded Streamable HTTP MCP server, bound to 127.0.0.1 with a per-install bearer token, so Claude (or any MCP client) can drive your whole dev environment.
MCP tools
- list_apps: registered apps and current run status
- app_status(app): per-service state, resolved ports, the port plan
- detect_app(path): scan a folder and propose a config (Next, Vite, Django, FastAPI, Rails, Go, and more)
- register_app(config): add or replace an app in the registry
- start_app(app, profile?) / stop_app(app) / restart_app(app, profile?): lifecycle
- get_logs(app, service, lines?): tail captured logs
Setup
Install Harbor (signed and notarized): download the dmg from GitHub Releases or brew install --cask luke-fairbanks/tap/harbor.
Then open Harbor's Connect your Claude screen (gear, bottom left) for one-click setup of Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or Codex. Or add it manually:
claude mcp add --transport http harbor http://127.0.0.1:7777/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer <token>"
The token is shown in Harbor's Connect screen (stored at ~/Library/Application Support/com.harbor.desktop/mcp.json).
macOS only for now. MIT licensed. Built with Tauri 2 (Rust core, React UI).
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