Conduit

One local gateway for all your MCP servers, shared by every AI client, with far fewer tokens.

Conduit is a local MCP (Model Context Protocol) gateway. You set up and authenticate each server once, and every AI client (Claude, Cursor, Codex, and the rest) points at Conduit and shares them, so you stop configuring the same servers separately in each app.

It also fixes what those servers cost your agent. Every MCP server you connect dumps all of its tools into context on every single request, and it adds up fast: just 3 servers (62 tools) cost ~24,000 tokens of definitions before you've asked anything. Conduit advertises 3 meta-tools the agent searches on demand instead, so it pays ~660 tokens.

Measured on a frontier model: up to 91% fewer total tokens at the same task success (graded for correct answers, not just completion), plus 97% less tool-definition overhead on every request, rising to 99.6% on a real 415-tool catalog (see BENCHMARK.md). That holds whether you run one AI tool or five, on cloud models (where tokens are your bill) or local ones (where tool defs eat your context window).

Screenshots

Servers	Catalog	Activity

Why

Every MCP server you connect dumps its full tool list into your agent's context on every request, and most AI clients also want their own separate configuration. So you pay a token tax on every call and reconfigure the same servers in every app. Conduit fixes both.

Fewer tokens

• ~90% fewer tokens. In lazy-discovery mode the gateway advertises three meta-tools (conduit_status, conduit_search_tools, conduit_call_tool) instead of the full catalog, and the agent searches and calls on demand, so context stays flat no matter how many servers you connect. Benchmarked, graded for correct answers: up to 91% fewer total tokens at the same task success, 97% less tool-definition overhead per request, 99.6% at a real 415-tool catalog (BENCHMARK.md). Ask conduit_status for what it has saved you so far.
• Search by intent, not just keywords. conduit_search_tools ranks by relevance across every server, and no tool is ever hidden, any server's full set is one call away. Optional semantic re-ranking (a local or hosted embeddings endpoint) surfaces paraphrased needs like "charge a card"; off by default, pure lexical otherwise.

One setup, every client

• Set up once, use everywhere. Each client points at one gateway. Add and authenticate a server a single time and it appears in every client.
• Paste from any client's docs. Copy a server config snippet straight from an MCP server's installation instructions — Cursor JSON, Codex TOML, VS Code, Zed, Claude Code CLI, or any other supported client — and paste it into the Add Server dialog. Conduit auto-detects the format and pre-fills the fields, including environment variable values.
• Per-agent scoping. Give each client only the servers it should see. A coding agent literally cannot call a billing tool that isn't in its profile.
• Obvious auth. OAuth or API key, stored once in the OS keychain, a single click per server. Newly-authed servers propagate to connected clients without a restart.
• No secrets in client configs. Clients only ever say "talk to Conduit." Keys live in the OS keychain and are injected at runtime.
• A catalog to grow. Add popular servers from a curated list of 40+, or search the official MCP Registry, then authenticate through the same flow.

Security, because the gateway is on the path

• Tool integrity (rug-pull + poisoning detection). Conduit fingerprints each tool when you connect a server and flags it if the definition later changes or a server quietly adds one (a "rug pull"), or if a description or schema carries injection-like content ("tool poisoning"). Detection only, on by default, entirely local (details).
• Content defense (anti-agentjacking). When a tool returns untrusted content (a Sentry error, a web page, an issue body) with injection-like instructions, Conduit flags it and marks it as external data, not instructions, the separation that blunts indirect prompt injection. Never blocks, on by default (details).
• Governance and audit. Toggle any tool on or off, or hide every destructive tool from every client with one switch. Every call is recorded with per-server latency and error rates.

Control and extras

• Agent control, on your terms. Optionally let an agent enable or disable servers through the gateway (conduit_enable_server / conduit_disable_server), reflected in the app live. Off by default, and the destructive-tool switch always stays yours.
• Full MCP, not just tools. Tools, resources, and prompts are all proxied.
• Test before you wire it up. A built-in playground invokes any tool with a form generated from its schema, so you can confirm a server works without configuring a client first.
• Diagnostics in one click. Bundles your version, OS, a secrets-stripped server summary, and the recent gateway log, ready to paste into a bug report.

How it works

Conduit has two pieces:

1. The desktop app (Tauri + React) where you manage servers, profiles, credentials, and which clients are connected.
2. The gateway binary (conduit-gateway) that each AI client launches over stdio. It reads Conduit's registry, connects to the enabled downstream servers (stdio or remote HTTP/SSE), and routes tool calls to the right one. Tool names are namespaced per server (stripe__list_charges) so they never collide.

AI client (Cursor / Claude / Codex / Antigravity / ...)
        │  stdio MCP
        ▼
  conduit-gateway  ──reads──►  registry.json + OS keychain
        │  routes tools/calls
        ▼
  downstream MCP servers (Stripe, Supabase, GitHub, ...)

The registry is the shared source of truth; the gateway watches it and rebuilds live, so toggles and new credentials take effect without restarting the client. If a connected server changes its own tool set mid-session, Conduit picks that up and refreshes too.

Supported clients

Conduit auto-detects these 20 AI clients, installs the gateway into each with one click, and can import a client's existing servers. It writes the config file shown below for you, so you never have to edit these by hand.

<config> is your OS application-config dir (%APPDATA% on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support on macOS, ~/.config on Linux); <data> is the data dir (~/.local/share on Linux, the same as <config> elsewhere). Zed and Goose paths vary slightly by OS; Conduit resolves the right one automatically.

Codex setup walkthrough

Use this when Codex has already created its ~/.codex/ directory.

1. In Conduit, add or enable the MCP servers you want Codex to use.
2. Open Clients, select Codex, optionally choose a profile, and click Connect to Conduit.
3. Conduit updates ~/.codex/config.toml with a single [mcp_servers.conduit] entry. That entry runs the resolved conduit-gateway binary; existing Codex TOML keys and other MCP servers are preserved, and an existing config is backed up before the write.
4. Start a new Codex session so it re-reads the config. In Conduit, the Codex row changes to connected to Conduit; in Code