Deploying to the cloud with Arcade Deploy

Running your servers locally is very convenient during development and testing. Once your MCP server is mature, however, you may want to access it from any MCP client, or to facilitate multi-user support. Doing all that from your computer comes with the complexity of running and maintaining a server, handling auth and high availability for all your users and all the integrations you want to support. Arcade Deploy takes care of all that for you. Your MCP server will be registered to Arcade, adding all the tools you created to the larger tool catalog. From there, you can create to pick and choose which tools you want to use in you MCP clients, which can be from any connected .

This guide shows you how to deploy your Server with Arcade Deploy.

Requirements

Python 3.10 or higher
Verify your Python version by running python --version or python3 --version in your terminal.
Arcade : Sign up for an Arcade account if you haven’t already.
Arcade CLI: Install the Arcade CLI

uv

Terminal


uv pip install arcade-mcp

Create an MCP server using Arcade MCP

If you have not created an server yet, then follow the steps outlined in this guide before deploying.

Deploy your MCP Server

Run the deploy command in the directory where you started your server (containing your pyproject.toml file).

Terminal


arcade deploy

By default, running arcade deploy looks for a file named server.py as the entry point to your server.

An entry point file is considered valid if it executes the run() method on your MCPApp instance when invoked directly - for example, running uv run your_entrypoint_file.py should result in your server starting. A minimal valid entry point looks like this:

Python


from arcade_mcp_server import MCPApp
 
app = MCPApp()
 
@app.tool
def echo(phrase: Annotated[str, "The phrase to echo"]):
    return phrase
 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

If your server uses a different script name or location, specify it with the —entrypoint option. For example, if your pyproject.toml is in ~/my-app/mcp-server/ and your entry point file is ~/my-app/mcp-server/server/my_mcp_server.py, start the deployment with:

Terminal


arcade deploy --entrypoint server/my_mcp_server.py

It is important that your entrypoint script executes MCPApp.run() (or app.run() if app is of type MCPApp) when invoked directly.

We recommend to do it inside an if __name__ == "__main__": statement.

You should see output like the following:

Terminal


Validating user is logged in...
✓ {arcade_user_id} is logged in
 
Validating pyproject.toml exists in current directory...
✓ pyproject.toml found at /path/to/your/project/pyproject.toml
 
Loading .env file from current directory if it exists...
✓ Loaded environment from /path/to/your/project/.env
 
Validating server is healthy and extracting metadata before deploying...
✓ Server started on port 8519
✓ Server is healthy
✓ Found server name: arcade_server
✓ Found server version: 1.0.0
✓ Found 3 tools
✓ Found 1 required secret(s)
 
Uploading 1 required secret(s) to Arcade...
✓ Uploading 'MY_SECRET_KEY' with value ending in ...ime!
✓ Secret 'MY_SECRET_KEY' uploaded
 
Creating deployment package...
✓ Package created (1.8 KB)
 
Deploying to Arcade Engine...
✓ Server 'arcade_server' v1.0.0 deployed successfully
 
Deployment Details:
  • Server ID: arcade_server
  • Server URI: https://example.run.arcade.dev
  • Server Secret: example-secret
 
⚠ Note: Your server is now starting up...
 
  This process may take a few minutes. Your server will be available at the URI above once ready.
 
View and manage your servers: https://api.arcade.dev/dashboard/

Manage your MCP servers in Arcade

Navigate to the Servers page in your Arcade dashboard. From there, you will be able to:

Monitor the health status of the server
Delete the server
Test and execute all the
Manage users connected to the
Manage the secrets for the server
Create MCP Gateways

Create an MCP Gateway to call the tools in your MCP Server

Once the server is deployed to Arcade, all the in the server will be available in the tool catalog page in your Arcade dashboard. To call the tools from an MCP client, you first need to create an MCP Gateway to pick and choose which tools you want to use in you MCP clients.

When creating an gateway, you can select the tools you want to include in the Gateway from any available to the , including the one you just deployed.

Use Arcade clients to call the tools in your MCP Server

You can use any of the available Arcade clients to call the tools in your Server. When using the clients, you are not required to create an , as the client will handle the connection to all tools in your Arcade directly.

Your Server is now deployed and registered with Arcade, and ready to be used in your MCP clients!