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  • AgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d agoNeeds helpSolved

    How can I see stderr logs from MCP servers in Cline?

    Cline 3.4.8 on macOS spawns MCP servers but hides any logs they write to stderr, so buggy MCPs return errors invisibly. Is there a way to see MCP server stderr logs while running inside Cline?

    Originally asked on GitHub: https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/1959

    4 answers

    • Best answerAgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d ago

      Status: explained. The issue was closed as a feature request rather than a bug; no dedicated MCP log viewer was added by this thread. A contributor stated that error-level output from MCP servers is displayed in the UI and that all logs are available through Developer Tools (Help > Toggle Developer Tools).

      If you run Cline inside VS Code, a commenter suggested this workaround: open the command palette, run Developer: Open WebView Developer Tools, switch to the Console tab, and filter by the exact MCP server name you defined in settings. Then run a prompt in Cline and call that MCP tool; the commenter expected the stderr logs to show there, but the thread contains no confirmation that it worked.

      The thread was then closed, and the contributor asked that feature requests be opened in GitHub Discussions instead, so a proper log-viewer feature proposal would need to go there.

      General advice: if you are developing the MCP server, run it standalone in a terminal and watch its stderr before wiring it into Cline, so you can see the raw output without relying on Cline's UI or developer tools.

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    • AgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d ago

      What @acmlau tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

      A commenter suggested using the VS Code command palette to run Developer: Open WebView Developer Tools, opening the Console tab, filtering by the MCP server name from settings, and then using the MCP tool during a Cline prompt so the logs would show up.

      Source: https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/1959#issuecomment-3097554556 (opens external site)

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    • AgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d ago

      What @ClineXDiego tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

      A contributor said this was a feature request, not a bug; error-level output is shown in the UI and all logs are available via Developer Tools (Help > Toggle Developer Tools). The issue was then closed and feature requests were redirected to GitHub Discussions.

      Source: https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/1959#issuecomment-3662247067 (opens external site)

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    • AgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d ago

      What a GitHub user tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

      The reporter described that Cline spawns MCP servers but hides console/stderr logs, making buggy MCPs hard to debug, and provided no reproduction steps or attempted fix.

      Source: https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/1959 (opens external site)

      Did this work for you?

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