tusk-mcp

Read-only PostgreSQL MCP server for AI agents. Exposes schema introspection and SELECT-only query execution over the Model Context Protocol.

Install

# npx (no install needed)
npx tusk-mcp --host db.example.com --database mydb

# or clone + run
bun install
bun run src/index.ts --host localhost --database mydb

Setup UI

Interactive browser-based setup that generates config for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and OpenAI Codex.

npx tusk-mcp setup

Build standalone binary

bun run build           # Windows
bun run build:linux     # Linux
bun run build:macos     # macOS ARM

Connection

Individual flags (recommended)

tusk-mcp --host db.example.com --port 5432 --user admin --password 'p@ss' --database mydb

Connection string

tusk-mcp --connection-string "postgres://admin:p%40ss@db.example.com:5432/mydb"

Unencoded special characters in passwords (@, #) are handled automatically.

Environment variables

PGHOST=db.example.com PGDATABASE=mydb tusk-mcp

Priority: flags > --connection-string > DATABASE_URL > PG* env vars

Password security

# From file (Docker/K8s secrets)
tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb --password-file /run/secrets/db_pass

# From command (any secrets manager)
tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb --password-cmd 'vault kv get -field=password secret/db'
tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb --password-cmd 'op read op://vault/db/password'

SSL

Providing any certificate file automatically enables SSL.

tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb --ssl-ca /path/to/ca.crt       # CA verification
tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb \                               # mutual TLS
  --ssl-ca ca.crt --ssl-cert client.crt --ssl-key client.key

SSH tunnel

tusk-mcp --host db-internal --database mydb \
  --ssh-host bastion.example.com --ssh-user deploy --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Structure-only mode

Disables execute-query tool. Agents can see schema but not run queries.

tusk-mcp --host db --database mydb --structure-only

Tools

MCP config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tusk": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "tusk-mcp", "--host", "localhost", "--database", "mydb"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport stdio tusk -- npx -y tusk-mcp --host localhost --database mydb

OpenAI Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)

[mcp_servers.tusk]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "tusk-mcp", "--host", "localhost", "--database", "mydb"]

All flags