Cursor

Add the server

Either Settings → MCP → Add new server, or edit the config file directly.

Global, at ~/.cursor/mcp.json — available in every project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vike-trader": {
      "command": "vike-cli",
      "args": ["mcp", "--node", "127.0.0.1:7879"]
    }
  }
}

Per project, at .cursor/mcp.json in the repository root — same shape, scoped to that project.

command + args is the local shape, and it is the only one that works here: vike-cli mcp is a subprocess Cursor starts and speaks stdio to, and it has no URL at all. (A url + headers entry is the remote shape, which is what the data server uses.)

Scoping what the tools reach

Both vike-cli mcp flags are optional. --node <host:port> is the running vike-tradehub the live tools observe and control — no default, so without it node_snapshot returns a clean error naming the flag before any socket is opened. A write tool is quieter: it previews unless a call carries both confirm: true and the preview_token its preview returned, and with no node configured that preview contacts nothing — so a preview is no evidence the flag arrived; a node snapshot is. --addr <host:port> is the vike-datahub the backtest tools ship profiles to, defaulting to 127.0.0.1:7878.

With neither, the offline tools — validate_strategy, discover_params, list_templates, list_indicators — still work, which makes a flag-less entry a reasonable first step:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vike-trader": { "command": "vike-cli", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

If Cursor reports the binary as not found, give command an absolute path: an editor launched from the desktop does not inherit the PATH your shell exports.

The node keys

For the same reason, keep VIKE_TRADEHUB_OBSERVE_KEY and VIKE_TRADEHUB_CONTROL_KEY in the credential store — <project>/settings/secrets.env, the same file the vike-tradehub daemon reads. vike-cli looks in the process environment first and the store second, and a desktop-launched child process sees none of your terminal's exports, so the store is the source that actually reaches it. That lookup order is crates/vike-cli/src/cmd/nodekeys.rs's resolve.

That is also the safer default for a per-project .cursor/mcp.json, which sits inside the repository: nothing secret ends up in a file that is one git add away from being committed. A committed control key is the expensive kind — it places orders.

vike-cli secrets path prints which store a directory resolves to; vike-cli secrets list shows whether the key is in it, by name.

After editing

Reload Cursor, or toggle the server off and on in the MCP pane. The settings pane shows each server's status and the tools it exposes — a healthy vike-trader lists 17.

Verify

list the vike strategy templates

list_templates is offline: no key, no node, no network. If it answers, the subprocess is running and the protocol is working, and anything still failing is an address or a key. With a node configured, "show me the node snapshot" proves the observe key too.

Troubleshooting

The server shows as failed. Almost always the JSON: a trailing comma, or a key nested in the wrong object. command and args are siblings inside the server's own object.

It is green but tools are never called. Cursor decides per request whether to use a tool. Name it — "use the list_templates tool" — to confirm the wiring before trusting the model to reach for it on its own.

A project config and a global config both exist. Keep the server in one of them. Two entries of the same name pointing at different --node addresses means the tool you are watching may not be the node you are watching.

The offline tools work and the node tools do not. That is an address or a key, not the MCP wiring — the two failures are worded differently on purpose. "no vike-tradehub node configured" means --node never arrived; "set neither in the process environment nor in the credential store" names a key, and names both places it looked.

The data server too

Cursor holds both Vike servers in the same mcpServers object — the hosted data server as a url + headers entry beside this one. Data client setup → Cursor has its shape. The names must differ: a second vike replaces the first.