🎉v5.5.0 Dev Mode for MCP Servers - Hot Reload!

[ravitemer]

Hi guys!

I'm excited to announce Dev Mode - a new feature that automatically restarts your MCP servers when source files change during development! 🚀.

What is Dev Mode?

Dev Mode enables hot reload functionality for MCP server development. Instead of manually restarting servers every time you make changes to your code, the system automatically detects file changes and restarts the server for you.

✨ Key Features

• 🔄 Automatic Restart: Detects file changes and restarts servers instantly
• 🎯 Smart Watching: Uses glob patterns to watch only the files you care about

📝 Configuration

Add a dev field to your MCP server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-dev-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["tsx", "path/to/src/index.ts"],
      "dev": {
        "enabled": true,
        "watch": ["src/**/*.ts", "package.json"],
        "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/your/server"
      }
    }
  }
}

Field	Required	Default	Description
cwd	Yes	-	Absolute path to server's working directory
watch	No	["**/*.js", "**/*.ts", "**/*.py", "**/*.json"]	Glob patterns to watch
enabled	No	true	Enable/disable dev mode

🎬 Demo

Here's a quick demo showing dev mode in action - watch the server automatically restart when I modify the index.ts file:

hot-reload.mp4

[Video shows real-time server restart in MCPHub UI when editing source files]

In order to customize the window postion use ui.align or open :MCPHub in another tmux pane:

require("mcphub").setup({
  ui = {
    window = {
      width = 0.4,  -- 40% of screen width
      height = 0.8, -- 80% of screen height  
      align = "right", -- Dock to right side
    }
  }
})

🛠 Perfect for Development Workflows

Dev mode is especially useful for:

• TypeScript/JavaScript servers: Skip build steps during development with npx tsx
• Python servers: Instant restart on source changes
• Configuration changes: Auto-restart when package.json or config files change