If you use Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, or Windsurf with MCP servers, you know the pain: manually editing JSON config files, each client storing configs differently, no way to know if a server is healthy, and no version pinning.

I built mcpman to fix this.

## What is MCP?

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Anthropic's open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external tools and data sources. Think of MCP servers as plugins for your AI coding assistant.

The problem? Installing and managing these servers is still manual and fragmented.

## The gap nobody filled

I researched every existing tool:

| Tool | Focus | Limitation |
|------|-------|-----------|
| Smithery CLI | Registry | Claude-only, no health checks |
| mcpm.sh | Config editing | Limited multi-client, no lockfile |
| mcp-get | Package install | Dead (redirected to Smithery) |

Nobody owned the operational layer — health monitoring, version pinning, cross-client sync, reproducible setups.