MCP

Lific exposes MCP tools for issues, projects, resources, pages, plans, comments, search, and activity history. The server is part of the Lific binary. Lific stores its data in SQLite.

This page documents the endpoint and its authentication for manual setup. Connect agents documents lific connect, which detects installed AI tools and writes this configuration for you.

HTTP endpoint

The MCP endpoint is:

https://your-server.example/mcp

The endpoint uses Streamable HTTP. The server is configured for JSON responses. It is not a standalone SSE endpoint.

API key authentication

HTTP clients authenticate with a bearer API key in the Authorization header. Create a key on the server with the lific key create <name> command. Lific returns the plaintext key once when it creates the key.

Use a configuration shaped like the following. Client-specific field names can differ.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lific": {
      "url": "https://your-server.example/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer lific_sk-live-your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

OAuth 2.1 authentication

Lific supports OAuth 2.1 for the MCP endpoint. The protected-resource metadata is available at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp. Authorization-server metadata is available at /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server.

OAuth-capable MCP clients can connect to the endpoint URL and complete the authorization flow without a manually created API key. Lific supports authorization-code flow with S256 PKCE. It also supports device authorization.

Lific implements dynamic client registration at /oauth/register. Clients can register a redirect URI before starting authorization. Registered redirect URIs must be absolute HTTP or HTTPS URLs.

MCP Registry manifest and stdio

The repository includes an MCP Registry manifest in server.json. The manifest declares the Cargo package lific and a stdio launch command of lific mcp. This manifest describes the stdio package transport. It does not configure the HTTP endpoint.

Registry publication is controlled by the registry that consumes the manifest.