MCP as a Service: an open MCP server management platform (manuel.kiessling.net)

MCP as a Service is an open platform (self‑hostable under a fair‑code license and available as a hosted trial) that makes it trivial to spin up, secure, observe, and operate dedicated MCP servers without wrestling with infrastructure. Its goal is practical: give AI agents reliable access to real tools (browsers via Playwright, headless shells, etc.) by providing reproducible per‑instance runtimes you can launch in seconds, inspect visually via an embedded VNC viewer, and access from anywhere while keeping instances private to your workflows. Technically, the system uses containerized instances that self‑declare routing/security via labels and an edge Traefik proxy to provide subdomain routing, TLS, and a ForwardAuth bearer‑token gate. A small type registry defines instance images, required services, and health probes so readiness is type‑driven rather than ad‑hoc; today there are Playwright (Chrome+VNC) and Linux CLI types. Lifecycle operations (create/recreate/teardown), fixed internal ports, health checks, and isolation avoid the fragility and port chaos of the original host‑process proof‑of‑concept. The repo and hosted app are public (github.com/dx-tooling/maas-webapp, app.mcp-as-a-service.com), and the roadmap emphasizes more instance types, tighter observability, quotas/Isolation, and team features—making this a pragmatic foundation for connecting agents to real-world tools.