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Run MCP Without the Desktop App

The rei CLI ships the same MCP server the desktop app does, and can host it directly. This is the path for a headless install, a CI box, or anyone who works in the terminal — no app, no GUI, no account.

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1. Install the CLI

This gives you the rei command, which runs the same analyzers as the desktop app, fully on your machine.
rei analyze writes a cached analysis the MCP server reads, so health and complexity tools answer instantly. It’s optional — see Cold start — but running it once means the first agent call returns real data immediately.

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3. Register the server

rei mcp runs the MCP server over stdio, scoped to whatever git repo it’s launched in — no “active project” file needed. Claude Code:
Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP client — point the agent’s MCP config at the command:
This is the standard MCP stdio config; only the command/args differ from the desktop-app setup (which points at the app binary with --mcp-server).

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Cold start

If you skip rei analyze, the first context-dependent tool call (get_project_health, get_complexity_hotspots, …) returns a short “run rei analyze” hint and warms the context in the background — a retry a moment later succeeds. The diff and annotation tools (get_annotated_diff, list_annotations, add_annotation_comment, …) work immediately regardless, because they read live git and your annotation file, not the cached analysis. So the review loop is usable the instant the server connects; only the analysis-derived tools need a warm-up.

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Shared state with the app

The CLI and the desktop app read and write the same on-disk state. Annotations an agent writes through the CLI-hosted server show up in the app’s Review tab, and replies you make in the app are visible to the agent — whichever one is running.

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Next

See the MCP tool reference for what each tool returns, or the Claude Code guide for the automated desktop-app setup.