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docs: add a troubleshooting guide for MCP server startup failures (closes #258) - #342

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docs: add a troubleshooting guide for MCP server startup failures (closes #258)#342
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Closes #258.

Adds docs/troubleshooting.md covering the four failure modes from the issue — server fails to start, scan times out, tool listing returns empty, rate limiting — plus what to include when reporting. Linked from the README docs list.

⚠️ Two corrections to the suggested content

The issue's outline named flags that do not exist, so I documented what actually works instead. Both were checked against src/ rather than assumed:

  1. There is no --timeout flag on scan/score/test. --timeout <ms> is registered only on demo (src/commands/demo.ts:80). The scan timeout is the per-target timeoutMs field in a target config file passed via --target, defaulting to 10 s in runner.ts:119. The guide shows a worked config for both local-process and http adapters.

  2. There is no --verbose flag anywhere in the CLI. I enumerated every registered .option( across src/commands/ to confirm. The guide points at --format json instead, which carries the per-check evidence and any captured fatalError.

Documenting either flag as suggested would have sent users to a command that errors out.

Other content notes

  • The 10 s default is worth stating plainly: an npx cold start alone can exceed it, so the guide suggests warming the package cache before blaming the server.
  • The empty-tool-listing section shows env with ${VAR} expansion in the target config, so required API keys are reproducible without writing secrets into the file.
  • Rate limiting is framed as usually the upstream API a server wraps, with skipInvoke: true as the way to check capability listings without spending quota.
  • The "don't run as root" advice is framed as a security point rather than generic caution — running an untrusted MCP server as root hands it root, which is precisely the risk this tool measures.

Every flag and config field referenced (--target, --format, --invoke-tools, --interval, timeoutMs, env, skipInvoke) was verified present in src/ before being written down.

Docs-only change.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Covers the four failure modes from the issue - server fails to start, scan
times out, empty tool listing, rate limiting - plus what to include when
reporting. Linked from the README docs list.

Two corrections to the suggested content, because the flags it named do not
exist:

- There is no --timeout flag on scan/score/test; --timeout <ms> is only on
  `demo`. The scan timeout is the per-target `timeoutMs` field in a target
  config passed with --target, defaulting to 10s in runner.ts. Documented that
  way, with a worked config.
- There is no --verbose flag anywhere in the CLI. Documented --format json
  instead, which carries the per-check evidence and any captured fatal error.

Every flag and config field referenced was checked against src/ before being
written down: --target, --format, --invoke-tools, --interval, and the
timeoutMs / env / skipInvoke target-config fields.

Also drops the "avoid running as root" line into a security framing rather than
a generic warning: running an untrusted MCP server as root hands it root, which
is the risk this tool measures.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@KryptosAI

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Merged after a README rebase onto current main (conflict with the shorter docs list). Thank you — docs/troubleshooting.md is on main.

@KryptosAI KryptosAI closed this Aug 17, 2026
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Add troubleshooting section to docs covering common MCP server startup failures

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