LightNow Local Proxy

The LightNow Local Proxy lets local MCP clients use one LightNow-managed MCP entry instead of storing every MCP server configuration and secret in every client.

It runs on your machine, uses your LightNow CLI login session, resolves the MCP servers enabled for your selected LightNow profile, and forwards tool/resource requests to local stdio or reachable Streamable HTTP MCP servers.

The proxy supports the official MCP 2026-07-28 revision and keeps automatic compatibility with handshake-era servers and clients through 2025-11-25.

Install

Requirements:

• Python 3.11 or higher
• pipx
• a LightNow account
• the LightNow CLI

pipx install lightnow-cli
lightnow login

Install the proxy with Homebrew:

brew tap lightnow-ai/tap
brew install lightnow-proxy

Or install it with pipx:

pipx install lightnow-proxy

Or install it with uv:

uv tool install lightnow-proxy

The Python package installs the lightnow-proxy command used by MCP clients.

For repository-local development:

uv tool install --from . lightnow-proxy

Update supported CLI and Proxy installations through the LightNow CLI:

lightnow update --check
lightnow update

Homebrew, pipx and uv are managed. The proxy only reports its observed version and update state in metadata-only heartbeats; it never invokes a package manager or delays MCP startup to check for releases.

Configure a Client

Use the LightNow CLI. It writes the client MCP entry and the per-client Local Proxy config.

lightnow sync --client codex --local-proxy
lightnow sync --client claude-desktop --local-proxy
lightnow sync --client cursor --local-proxy
lightnow sync --client vscode --local-proxy
lightnow sync --client antigravity --local-proxy

Restart the MCP client after syncing.

Multiple accounts and organizations

Use a distinct --connection alias for every account, organization or profile that should appear in the same MCP client:

lightnow login
lightnow sync --client codex --local-proxy \
  --connection lightnow-personal --profile default

# Sign in with the organization account before creating this connection.
lightnow login
lightnow sync --client codex --local-proxy \
  --connection lightnow-acme --tenant <tenant-id> --profile engineering

Each generated proxy config has a stable connection ID and points to one named CLI session under ~/.lightnow/sessions/. It also records the expected issuer and subject. The proxy refuses Registry requests when those values do not match, so a later CLI login cannot silently switch an existing connection. No access or refresh token is written to the proxy YAML.

Check the local setup:

lightnow config-status --client codex

Check whether the proxy can resolve the selected profile and reach its upstream MCP servers:

lightnow-proxy --health
lightnow-proxy --health --json

By default this reads ~/.lightnow/lightnow-proxy/default.yaml, which is written when the default profile is synced into Local Proxy mode. For a client-specific config, pass the generated path explicitly:

lightnow-proxy --config ~/.lightnow/lightnow-proxy/codex.yaml --health
lightnow-proxy --config ~/.lightnow/lightnow-proxy/codex.yaml --health --json

Named connections use separate files such as ~/.lightnow/lightnow-proxy/codex-lightnow-acme.yaml. The JSON health report shows their non-secret connection alias, ID, account label, scope, profile and identity-binding status. Legacy configs that use cli_config_path remain readable, but are restricted to the configured authentication issuer.

When telemetry is enabled, active health checks and runtime events are sent to the LightNow Control Plane. Tool-call arguments are captured by default and can be disabled independently in the Local Proxy settings. Credential-like fields are redacted before transmission. The proxy also sends device presence immediately at startup and every two minutes. The Control Plane can then show which devices, clients and profiles are active, healthy, degraded, or failing, along with CLI/Proxy versions and update status. Tool results, resolved LightNow secrets, unredacted authorization values, network addresses, hardware identifiers and local paths are not stored. Credential-like argument fields, including authorization headers, are replaced with [REDACTED] before transmission.

Vault providers configured for runtime resolution are resolved on this host, after Registry API has returned a provider reference without credentials or a secret value. HashiCorp Vault Proxy auto-auth on 127.0.0.1:8200 is the default. Provider-specific loopback listeners can be mapped under runtime_secrets.providers in the generated YAML; LightNow CLI preserves these non-secret mappings on subsequent syncs. The optional OS-keyring path is available with lightnow-proxy[keyring]. Resolution failures are fail-closed and plaintext values are never added to the tool-schema cache.

More Documentation

Detailed setup guides, examples, diagrams, supported client paths, telemetry behavior and troubleshooting live in the LightNow docs:

• Connect MCP clients
• CLI reference
• Release process

Local Development

For contributors working on this repository:

uv venv
uv pip install -e .[dev]
make test

Run the proxy with the example config:

uv run lightnow-proxy --config config.example.yaml

Run the proxy as a stdio MCP server:

uv run lightnow-proxy --config config.example.yaml --transport stdio

Run a local health check against the example config:

uv run lightnow-proxy --config config.example.yaml --health