https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates Stacklok Docs Blog 2026-01-19T00:00:00.000Z https://github.com/jpmonette/feed Stacklok Docs Blog https://docs.stacklok.com/img/stacklok-favicon.svg <![CDATA[Client configuration and stability improvements]]> https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates/2026/01/19/updates 2026-01-19T00:00:00.000Z Welcome to 2026! The ToolHive team is back into the swing of things after the holiday break, focusing on improved operational resilience and streamlined developer workflows: vMCP gained backend health monitoring for production environments, the CLI and desktop UI added bearer token authorization for remote servers, the desktop UI added flexible proxy configuration, and Cloud UI now displays MCP configurations for your IDE clients, with one-click setup for Cursor.

Virtual MCP Server: Health monitoring and composite tool fixes​

vMCP adds operational capabilities that teams need for production deployments:

  • Backend health monitoring detects and handles unreachable servers gracefully, reducing user-facing errors when individual MCP servers restart or become temporarily unavailable.
  • Composite tool fixes ensure type coercion in templates works correctly and error continuation behaves as expected, so multi-step workflows complete reliably even when intermediate steps encounter issues.

ToolHive desktop UI: Proxy configuration and stability​

The desktop UI gives you more control over how MCP servers connect:

  • Custom proxy ports simplify deployment in environments with specific port requirements or when running multiple instances.
  • Stability improvements through upgraded core dependencies (Electron, ai-sdk) and fixes for form validation and environment variable handling reduce crashes and unexpected behavior.

Behind the scenes, we've expanded automated testing with Playwright, and work is underway to align CLI and Desktop UI versioning through bundling.

CLI and desktop UI: New auth option for remote servers​

The CLI and desktop UI now support bearer token authentication for remote MCP servers, enabling secure connections to authenticated endpoints, such as enterprise APIs or hosted services, without manual credential handling in each request.

Cloud UI: Easier client setup​

Cloud UI now displays client-specific configurations for MCP servers (Cursor, VS Code, and Claude Code), making setup easier. For Cursor, a single click opens the configuration directly; for VS Code and Claude Code, copy the ready-to-use config or command.

Getting started

For detailed release notes, check the project repositories:

You can find all ToolHive documentation on the ToolHive documentation site.

]]> <![CDATA[Improved monitoring and deployment automation for vMCP and Registry Server]]> https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates/2025/12/22/updates 2025-12-22T00:00:00.000Z This week ToolHive added production-ready features that teams need for enterprise deployment: audit logging and health monitoring for vMCP, API-driven registry management, and direct registry connections in the UI.

Virtual MCP Server: Audit logging, health checking, and composite tool improvements​

vMCP adds more operational capabilities that teams need for production deployments:

  • Health monitoring tracks which MCP servers behind vMCP are available and responding, the foundation for building alerts and dashboards that keep your AI workflows running smoothly.
  • Audit logging captures workflow events (started, completed, failed) via CRD configuration, giving you the compliance trail and debugging context required for regulated environments.
  • Composite tools are more powerful: Reference deeply nested fields using {{.steps.X.output.field.nested}} syntax, and use the new fromJson function to work with MCP servers (like GitHub) that return JSON as plain text. This enables cleaner conditional logic and more flexible workflows.

ToolHive Registry Server: API management and deployment improvements​

Managing registries is now more flexible and automated:

  • API-based management lets you add, update, or remove registries programmatically, useful for CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code approaches.
  • Simplified authentication: Configure auth settings directly in the Registry CRD instead of managing separate configuration files. Database credentials specified in the CRD automatically provision pgpass files, reducing manual setup.
  • Kubernetes deployment: A new Helm chart (publishing soon) makes cluster deployments more straightforward.

ToolHive UI: Live registry connections​

The ToolHive UI now connects directly to standards-compliant registry API servers like the ToolHive Registry Server. Instead of importing static JSON files, you get live registry data, making it easier to browse and discover available MCP servers in your environment.

Getting started​

For detailed release notes, check the project repositories:

You can find all ToolHive documentation on the ToolHive documentation site.

]]> <![CDATA[Registry Server scales up, vMCP gains observability]]> https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates/2025/12/15/updates 2025-12-15T00:00:00.000Z This week, we focused on operational readiness and flexibility: the Registry Server now auto-discovers server types and scales sync across multiple registry instances, Virtual MCP Server (vMCP) gained OpenTelemetry observability and smarter composite tools, and both the CLI and UI now fully support the ToolHive Registry Server.

ToolHive Registry Server: Smarter discovery and scalable sync​

The Registry Server now features improved auto-discovery capabilities and sync architecture. You can now:

  • Automatically detect whether an auto-registered server is an MCPServer, VirtualMCPServer, or MCPRemoteProxy.
  • Scale sync jobs across multiple registry instances with an improved sync implementation.
  • Deploy without hardcoded namespaces; the registry server now auto-discovers its operating namespace.
  • Connect the ToolHive CLI and UI to your Registry Server, bringing effortless discovery and deployment to your custom registry.

Virtual MCP Server: Observability and composite tool improvements​

vMCP gained production-grade observability and extended composite tool capabilities.

You can now:

  • Expose OpenTelemetry metrics on the standard Prometheus /metrics endpoint (request counts, latencies, backend health, active connections) and export distributed traces for backend client and workflow calls, enabling comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and debugging.
  • Define default results for skippable composite tool steps, ensuring workflows behave predictably across all conditional branches.
  • Use non-string arguments in composite tools, enabling structured output references for conditional logic, downstream step arguments, and final outputs.
  • Include MCPRemoteProxy resources in MCPGroups, allowing remote MCP servers to aggregate alongside local servers in your VirtualMCPServer configuration.

Getting started​

For detailed release notes, check the project repositories:

You can find all ToolHive documentation on the ToolHive documentation site.

]]> <![CDATA[Introducing Registry Server and Virtual MCP Server]]> https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates/2025/12/08/updates 2025-12-08T00:00:00.000Z A big week for ToolHive: we shipped a new Registry Server for managing and curating MCP servers at scale, expanded the ToolHive UI with registry-based installs and richer tool controls, and introduced Virtual MCP Server (vMCP) for consolidating many MCP backends into one secure, workflow-aware endpoint.

ToolHive Registry Server: Unified registry management and discovery​

ToolHive now includes a dedicated Registry Server that aggregates multiple registry sources, keeps them in sync, and helps teams publish a curated "desired" registry. This enables you to:

  • Connect multiple registry backends (Git repositories, local or remote files, internally-managed entries, Kubernetes workloads, or upstream MCP Registry API servers).
  • Auto-discover MCP servers deployed in Kubernetes.
  • Automatically synchronize changes across registry sources.
  • Curate what users see via include/exclude filtering.
  • Use an authenticated cloud-based UI to view running MCP servers.

ToolHive UI: Registry groups and tool customization (GA)​

The ToolHive UI gained new features to standardize installs and tailor tool experiences. You can now:

  • Install MCP server groups directly from a custom registry.
  • Customize tools to disable unnecessary tools and edit their names and descriptions for better AI performance and token/cost savings.

Virtual MCP Server: One endpoint for many servers and workflow automation​

Virtual MCP Server (vMCP) simplifies operating many MCP servers in Kubernetes and building cross-system workflows. It enables you to:

  • Aggregate multiple MCP servers behind a single endpoint and automatically resolve tool name conflicts.
  • Define declarative, multi-step tool workflows with parallel execution, conditionals, error handling, and approval gates.
  • Filter, rename, and wrap upstream tools to enforce policies and present simpler interfaces.
  • Pre-configure defaults for common parameters to reduce repetition and prevent mistakes.
  • Separate auth boundaries: clients authenticate once to vMCP while vMCP manages backend credentials for SSO, centralized access control, and auditing.

Ecosystem updates​

The ToolHive ecosystem continues to grow with support for new clients and MCP server integrations.

Client support:

  • Zed: ToolHive now supports managing MCP configurations in Zed

New MCP servers in the built-in registry:

  • PagerDuty: Monitor and manage incidents
  • Prometheus: Query metrics and monitor systems
  • Redfish (from Nokia): Manage server hardware
  • SonarQube: Analyze code quality
  • ToolHive Documentation Search: Search ToolHive docs directly

Getting started​

For detailed release notes, check the project repositories:

You can find all ToolHive documentation on the ToolHive documentation site.

]]> <![CDATA[Welcome to ToolHive Updates]]> https://docs.stacklok.com/toolhive/updates/2025/12/05/hello-world 2025-12-05T00:00:00.000Z We're launching this Updates section to keep you informed about what's new with ToolHive.

Expect regular posts here covering:

  • Platform updates and improvements
  • Developer resources and guides
  • New MCP servers added to the registry
  • Community highlights

This is a new initiative, so the format will evolve based on what's useful. If there's something specific you'd like us to cover in these updates, let us know.

Check back next week for the first full update!

— The ToolHive Team

]]>