MCP Conduit

The open-source MCP gateway that makes AI tool calls production-ready.

Conduit sits between your AI agents and MCP servers. One YAML file gives you caching, auth, rate limiting, guardrails, and multi-server routing. No code changes needed.

  AI Agents ──> [ Conduit ] ──> MCP Server A (HTTP)
  (Claude,                 ──> MCP Server B (stdio)
   Cursor,                 ──> MCP Server C (replicas)
   custom)

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Get Started in 60 Seconds

npx conduit init   # interactive setup wizard
npx conduit        # start the gateway

Or create conduit.config.yml:

servers:
  - id: my-server
    url: http://localhost:3000/mcp
    cache:
      default_ttl: 300

npm install && npm run build && npm start

Your agents now connect to http://localhost:8080/mcp/my-server instead of the MCP server directly. Open http://localhost:8080/conduit/dashboard to see what's happening.

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Performance

Measured on a single machine, single process. These are real numbers, not theoretical limits.

What we measured	Result	Why it matters
Gateway overhead	0.02ms added per request	You won't notice Conduit is there
Cache hit throughput	46K RPS (sequential) / 64K RPS (concurrent)	Cached responses are instant
All features enabled	111K RPS at P99 = 3.24ms	Auth + plugins + rate limit + cache, still fast
Stdio transport	354K RPS (concurrent)	Faster than HTTP (no network overhead)
Plugin hooks	2M ops/sec	Plugins add zero measurable latency

How we compare to alternatives

	Conduit	Bifrost (Go)	TrueFoundry	Envoy AI GW
Overhead	0.02ms	0.011ms	3-4ms	1-2ms
Cache hit RPS	46K-64K	not published	350/vCPU	not published
Language	TypeScript	Go	TypeScript	C++/Go
License	MIT	Apache 2.0	Proprietary	Apache 2.0

Bifrost has lower raw overhead (Go vs JS). We compensate with aggressive caching. In practice, most requests are cache hits.

npm run benchmark         # run it yourself (24 scenarios)
npm run benchmark:quick   # 3-second smoke test

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What Conduit Does

Core Gateway

Feature	Description
Multi-server routing	Route tools across servers with namespace prefixes (github.list_repos)
HTTP + stdio transport	Proxy HTTP servers or spawn local binaries. Same features for both
Load balancing	Round-robin or least-connections across replicas
Circuit breaker	Per-replica failure isolation (closed/open/half-open)
Health checks	Periodic probes with configurable thresholds
Hot reload	SIGHUP or API call. Add servers, update rules, zero downtime

Caching

Feature	Description
L1 in-memory	LRU cache with per-tool TTL
L2 Redis	Distributed cache for multi-instance deployments
Smart invalidation	Destructive tools auto-invalidate related cache entries
Inflight dedup	10 identical requests = 1 upstream call, 10 responses
Annotation-aware	Respects MCP readOnly, idempotent, destructive hints

Security

Feature	Description
JWT auth	JWKS validation with auto-rotating keys
API key auth	Constant-time comparison (timing-attack resistant)
ACL policies	Per-client, per-server, per-tool access control with wildcards
AI guardrails	Block/alert/transform tool calls based on name + argument rules
Rate limiting	Sliding window (memory or Redis), global + per-client + per-tool
CSRF protection	Admin mutations require X-Conduit-Admin header
SSRF protection	URL validation blocks internal IPs and metadata endpoints

Observability

Feature	Description
Structured logs	SQLite with retention, field redaction, trace correlation
Prometheus metrics	18 counters/gauges/histograms on dedicated port
OpenTelemetry	W3C Trace Context + OTLP export
Admin dashboard	React SPA: logs, servers, cache stats, circuit breakers
Admin API	40+ endpoints for programmatic access

Extensibility

Feature	Description
Plugin system	5 hooks in the pipeline, dynamic JS/TS loading
Service discovery	HTTP self-registration + DNS SRV
JSON Schema	Config autocompletion in VS Code / JetBrains
CLI wizard	npx conduit init generates config interactively

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Configuration

Minimal (just your server):

servers:
  - id: my-server
    url: http://localhost:3000/mcp
    cache:
      default_ttl: 300

With stdio transport:

servers:
  - id: filesystem
    transport: stdio
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/tmp"]
    cache:
      default_ttl: 60

With everything:

servers:
  - id: salesforce
    url: http://salesforce-mcp:3000/mcp
    cache:
      default_ttl: 300
      overrides:
        create_lead:
          ttl: 0
          invalidates: [get_contact, search_leads]

auth:
  method: api_key
  api_keys:
    - key: ${CONDUIT_API_KEY}
      client_id: my-agent
      tenant_id: default

guardrails:
  enabled: true
  default_action: allow
  rules:
    - name: block-destructive
      tools: ["delete_*", "drop_*"]
      action: block
      message: "Destructive tools require manual review"
      severity: high

cache:
  l2:
    enabled: true
    redis_url: ${CONDUIT_REDIS_URL}
    default_ttl_multiplier: 3

admin:
  key: ${CONDUIT_ADMIN_KEY}

All config fields: docs/CONFIGURATION.md | Environment variables: .env.example

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Deployment

Docker:

docker build -t conduit .
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -p 9090:9090 \
  -v ./conduit.config.yml:/app/conduit.config.yml:ro \
  -e CONDUIT_ADMIN_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  conduit

Kubernetes: Helm chart in deploy/helm/. Liveness and readiness probes included.

helm install conduit deploy/helm/conduit --set config.adminKey=$(openssl rand -hex 32)

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What Conduit Does NOT Do

We believe in being upfront:

• Not a managed service. You host it. No SaaS offering.
• Not a cluster. Single process. Scale horizontally with a load balancer.
• No pre-built integrations. This is a proxy, not an integration catalog.
• No container isolation for stdio. Child processes run in the same OS context.
• No SOC 2 certification. Regulated environments need your own audit.
• Higher raw overhead than Go. 0.02ms vs 0.011ms (language gap). Caching makes this irrelevant in practice.

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Documentation

Doc	Description
Configuration Reference	Every config field, with defaults and examples
API Reference	All 40+ admin endpoints with curl examples
Security Guide	Production hardening checklist
Wiki	Architecture, plugin dev, FAQ
JSON Schema	Config autocompletion for your editor

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Testing

npm test                    # 1341 tests
npm run test:battle         # chaos + fault injection
npm run test:integration    # multi-server end-to-end

70 test files covering unit, e2e, battle, integration, security, and benchmarks.

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Issues and PRs welcome.

License

MIT