The Plug WeeklyHey there,
Five servers for people who run machines: remote shell access, Kubernetes, a what-changed report for a home server, AWS context for your coding assistant, and an AWS security scan. They come from five different authors and all scored 84 or higher on Socketlist. Giving an agent access to infrastructure is higher-stakes than most of what we cover, so every pick below says what access it needs. We have not run any of these servers. Picks are chosen to cover different jobs, so a few servers on the radar list score higher than some picks. Every number below comes from public data (the official MCP Registry, GitHub and npm) as of October 15, 2026.
The five picks
Policy-gated, audited SSH for Linux and Windows hosts: roles, approvals, and an audit log.
The evidence: 803 GitHub stars · 5,023 npm downloads last week · MIT licence · has a security policy · last push Oct 12, 2026 · repo created Apr 2025 · no hygiene flags. (Maintenance 40/40 · security hygiene 35/35 · adoption 24/25)
npx -y ssh-mcpBefore you install: Nothing works until you create a config.toml (the README gives the path for Linux, macOS and Windows) and lock it down with chmod; without a config the server starts but refuses every tool call. Connect as a normal user, not root (the README's own example says so), and read how roles (viewer, operator, admin) and approvalMode work before you set approvalPolicy to auto.
Who should skip it: If a shell on a remote host is more access than your task needs. A read-only status tool such as homebutler below may be enough.
Sources: Socketlist page · GitHub
A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Kubernetes and OpenShift.
The evidence: 2,160 GitHub stars · 11,592 npm downloads last week · Apache-2.0 licence · has a security policy · last push Oct 14, 2026 · repo created Feb 2025 · no hygiene flags. (Maintenance 35/40 · security hygiene 35/35 · adoption 25/25)
npx -y kubernetes-mcp-serverBefore you install: It uses your kubeconfig, so it can reach whatever your current context can. The README recommends a dedicated ServiceAccount with read-only access for production, and a read_only = true option in its TOML config. It says tokens, keys and passwords are redacted before results go to the client.
Who should skip it: If you do not use Kubernetes or OpenShift.
Sources: Socketlist page · GitHub
Tells an agent what changed on a server since it last looked - status, Docker, backups, Proxmox.
The evidence: 302 GitHub stars · 1,120 npm downloads last week · MIT licence · has a security policy · last push Oct 11, 2026 · repo created Feb 2026 · no hygiene flags. (Maintenance 39/40 · security hygiene 35/35 · adoption 20/25)
npx -y homebutlerBefore you install: The npm package publishes one command that starts the MCP server. It reaches your machines over SSH (its Docker example mounts ~/.ssh read-only) and compares the current state against the last saved snapshot. The README says no agent stays running on the machines it watches, the report is a written rule rather than a model, and no account is needed.
Who should skip it: If you manage one laptop or one cloud VM rather than a few servers or a homelab. The change report is most useful across several machines and runs.
Sources: Socketlist page · GitHub
Live AWS, database & Kafka infrastructure context for AI coding assistants via MCP.
The evidence: 22 GitHub stars · 378 npm downloads last week · MIT licence · has a security policy · last push Oct 13, 2026 · repo created May 2026 · no hygiene flags. (Maintenance 40/40 · security hygiene 35/35 · adoption 13/25)
npx infrawise start --claudeBefore you install: Needs Node 22 or newer. Run it from your project folder: it writes infrawise.yaml and a .mcp.json file there, scans your AWS services, databases and code, then opens Claude Code. It uses your existing AWS credential chain and says it never stores credentials; the README shows an IAM policy you can scope to just the services you enable, so you need not hand it admin credentials. All 22 tools are annotated read-only.
Who should skip it: If you do not run on AWS, or you use an editor other than Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code (the README has start flags for those).
Sources: Socketlist page · GitHub
AWS security scanner with attack chain detection, IAM privilege escalation, and fixes.
The evidence: 72 GitHub stars · MIT licence · has a security policy · last push Oct 14, 2026 · repo created Mar 2026 · no hygiene flags. (Maintenance 40/40 · security hygiene 35/35 · adoption 9/25)
uvx --from cloud-audit cloud-audit-mcpBefore you install: It scans an AWS account with read-only API calls. The README says to attach the AWS-managed SecurityAudit policy to the role you give it, which covers its checks. The MCP server is a separate command (cloud-audit-mcp) from the cloud-audit CLI, which is why the command above names it. Python 3.10 to 3.13.
Who should skip it: If you are not on AWS, or you want fixes applied for you: it reports findings and can export fix scripts, and it leaves running them to you.
Sources: Socketlist page · GitHub
On the radar
- Containerization Assist (87): TypeScript MCP server for AI-powered containerization workflows with Docker and Kubernetes support.
- coolify (88): 46 optimized tools for managing Coolify infrastructure, diagnostics, and docs search.
- kastell (87): Server security audit (413 checks), hardening, and fleet management across 4 cloud providers.
- mikrotik-mcp (87): MCP server for MikroTik routers: firewall, NAT, routing, DHCP, DNS, WireGuard and more via SSH.
Not about MCP, but if you run a small business: Get the Most Out of Grok Bot for Business is a 41-page plain-language guide ($19).