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AppImage: where is solidcraft-cli for MCP?

Verified on a Debian Linux box against SolidCraft v0.16.2 (solidcraft-0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage and matching .tar.gz / .deb from GitHub Releases). Snap CLI name from official Getting started.

Short answer: the AppImage entry point is the GUI (solidcraft). It does not accept mcp as a useful CLI mode. The MCP server binary solidcraft-cli is packaged inside the AppImage — extract it, or install the .tar.gz / .deb which put both binaries on disk.
On this page What we saw AppImage extract tar.gz & deb Snap Client configs

What we saw (real terminal output)

Running the AppImage directly:

$ ./solidcraft-0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage --version
solidcraft 0.16.2

$ ./solidcraft-0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage --help
usage: solidcraft [--control PORT] [--sample] [--crash-log] [--safe-mode] [design.solidcraft | part.step]

So argv0 is the desktop app, not the CLI. After --appimage-extract:

$ ./solidcraft-0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract
$ ls squashfs-root/usr/bin/
solidcraft
solidcraft-cli
solvecraft-cli

$ ./squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli --version
solidcraft-cli 0.16.2

$ ./squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli mcp
solidcraft mcp: files limited to …/recovery, /tmp/solidcraft-mcp-… and the open design's folder …
# (stdio MCP server started; Ctrl-C / close stdin to stop)

Renaming/symlinking the AppImage to solidcraft-cli still reported solidcraft 0.16.2 (GUI binary) — there is no argv0 trick that turns the AppImage into the CLI.

Recommended AppImage workflow for MCP

  1. Download solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage from Releases.
  2. chmod +x the AppImage (optional if you only extract).
  3. Extract once: ./solidcraft-…AppImage --appimage-extract
  4. Point MCP clients at the absolute path …/squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli.
chmod +x solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage
./solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract
./squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli mcp

Prefer tar.gz or deb? Both ship the CLI

The Linux .tar.gz layout is bin/solidcraft + bin/solidcraft-cli (verified). The .deb installs the same pair under /usr/bin/ (dpkg-deb -c lists both). For MCP-only machines, the tarball is the simplest:

tar -xzf solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
./solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64/bin/solidcraft-cli --version
./solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64/bin/solidcraft-cli mcp

Snap

Official docs: after sudo snap install solidcraft, the CLI is solidcraft.cli (not solidcraft-cli). Example: solidcraft.cli --version / solidcraft.cli mcp.

Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor

Replace the command path with your extracted or tarball CLI. Absolute paths avoid PATH issues.

Claude Code

claude mcp add solidcraft -- /ABS/PATH/squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli mcp

Or .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "solidcraft": {
      "command": "/ABS/PATH/squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop (headless)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "solidcraft": {
      "command": "/ABS/PATH/squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "solidcraft": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/ABS/PATH/squashfs-root/usr/bin/solidcraft-cli",
      "args": ["mcp", "--allow-path", "/absolute/path/to/your/designs"]
    }
  }
}

For tarball installs, use …/solidcraft-v0.16.2-linux-x86_64/bin/solidcraft-cli instead. For Snap, use solidcraft.cli as the command name.

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