Tiger MCP

Tiger CLI

Tiger CLI is the command-line interface for Tiger Cloud. It provides commands for managing and querying database services, as well as an integrated Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for use with AI assistants.

Installation

Multiple installation methods are provided. Choose your preferred method from the options below. If you aren't sure, use the first one!

Install Script (macOS/Linux/WSL)

curl -fsSL https://cli.tigerdata.com | sh

Install Script (Windows)

irm https://cli.tigerdata.com/install.ps1 | iex

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install --cask timescale/tap/tiger-cli

Debian/Ubuntu

# Add repository

curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.deb.sh | sudo os=any dist=any bash

Install tiger-cli

sudo apt-get install tiger-cli

For manual repository installation instructions, see here.

Red Hat/Fedora

# Add repository

curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.rpm.sh | sudo os=rpm_any dist=rpm_any bash

Install tiger-cli

sudo yum install tiger-cli

For manual repository installation instructions, see here.

Go Install

go install github.com/timescale/tiger-cli/cmd/tiger@latest

Updating

To upgrade an existing installation to the latest release:

tiger upgrade

This downloads the latest published binary, verifies its checksum, and replaces the currently running binary in place. If Tiger CLI was installed via a package manager (Homebrew, apt, yum/dnf), tiger upgrade will instead point you at the matching package-manager command.

Quick Start

After installing Tiger CLI, authenticate with your Tiger Cloud account:

# Login to your Tiger account

tiger auth login

View available commands

tiger --help

List your database services

tiger service list

Create a new database service

tiger service create --name my-database

Get connection string

tiger db uri

Connect to your database

tiger db psql

Run a query without psql

tiger db query -c "SELECT now()"

Install the MCP server

tiger mcp install

Install agent skills for your coding agent

tiger skills install

Usage

Tiger CLI provides the following commands:

• tiger auth - Authentication management
• login - Log in to your Tiger account (use --headless to authorize with a short code in a browser on any machine)
• logout - Log out from your Tiger account
• status - Show current authentication status and project ID (alias: whoami)
• tiger project - Project management
• list - List all projects you have access to, marking the active one (alias: ls)
• use - Switch the active project (requires an OAuth login; clears the default service_id, since it belonged to the previous project) (alias: switch)
• tiger service - Service lifecycle management (aliases: services, svc)
• list - List all services (alias: ls)
• create - Create a new service
• get - Show detailed service information (aliases: describe, show)
• fork - Fork an existing service
• start - Start a stopped service (alias: resume)
• stop - Stop a running service (alias: pause)
• rename - Rename a service
• resize - Resize service CPU and memory allocation
• delete - Delete a service (alias: rm)
• update-password - Update service master password
• logs - View service logs (alias: log)
• metrics available - List the metric names available for a service
• metrics details - Show a metric's description, type, default aggregation and labels
• metrics series - Fetch a metric's time series, with label filters, an aggregation function, group by and bucket size
• tiger db - Database operations
• psql - Connect to a database with psql (in an interactive terminal, if the service has read replicas, offers to connect to one of them; use --no-replica-prompt to skip) (alias: connect)
• query - Execute a SQL query against a database and display the results, without needing psql (alias: sql)
• uri - Get connection URI for a service (alias: connection-string)
• ping - Test database connectivity (aliases: test, test-connection)
• schema - Display database schema information (tables, views, indexes, functions, TimescaleDB hypertables, and more)
• extensions list - List the PostgreSQL extensions installed in a database, with their versions and schemas (aliases: ext ls)
• save-password - Save a database password to configured password storage (keyring, pgpass, or none)
• create role - Create a new database role, with optional read-only enforcement, inherited grants (--from), and statement timeout (alias: create user)
• tiger config - Configuration management (alias: cfg)
• list - List current configuration (aliases: ls, show)
• set - Set configuration value
• unset - Remove configuration value (aliases: rm, delete)
• reset - Reset configuration to defaults (alias: clear)
• tiger mcp - MCP server setup and management
• install - Install and configure MCP server for an AI assistant (alias: add)
• start - Start the MCP server
• list - List available MCP tools, prompts, and resources (alias: ls)
• get - Get detailed information about a specific MCP capability (aliases: describe, show)
• tiger skills - Agent skills for AI coding agents
• install - Install PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB skills for AI coding agents (alias: add)
• tiger feedback - Submit feedback or a bug report to the Tiger Data team (pass the message as an argument or on stdin)
• tiger version - Show version information
• tiger upgrade - Upgrade the Tiger CLI to the latest version (alias: update)

Use tiger --help for detailed information about each command, or browse the generated CLI reference.

Naming a Service

Anywhere a command takes a service as an argument, it takes either its ID (or a read replica set ID) or its name:

tiger db psql my-api-db

tiger service stop my-api-db

Names are matched exactly. A name that matches more than one service is refused; run tiger service list to find the ID you want. A default service (tiger config set service_id, --service-id, or TIGER_SERVICE_ID) must be an ID, and destructive commands still ask you to type the ID to confirm. The MCP tools take IDs only.

MCP Server

Tiger CLI includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants like Claude Code to interact with your Tiger Cloud infrastructure. The MCP server provides programmatic access to database services and operations.

Installation

Configure the MCP server for your AI assistant:

# Interactive installation (prompts for client selection)

tiger mcp install

Or specify your client directly

tiger mcp install claude-code # Claude Code tiger mcp install codex # Codex tiger mcp install copilot # GitHub Copilot CLI tiger mcp install cursor # Cursor IDE tiger mcp install devin # Devin tiger mcp install gemini # Gemini CLI tiger mcp install vscode # VS Code

After installation, restart your AI assistant to activate the Tiger MCP server.

Manual Installation

If your MCP client is not supported by tiger mcp install, follow the client's instructions for installing MCP servers. Use tiger mcp start as the command to start the MCP server. For example, many clients use a JSON file like the following:

{

"mcpServers": { "tiger": { "command": "tiger", "args": [ "mcp", "start" ] } } }

Streamable HTTP Protocol

The above instructions install the MCP server using the stdio transport. If you need to use the Streamable HTTP transport instead, you can start the server with tiger mcp start http --port 8080 and install it into your client using http://localhost:8080 as the URL.

Available MCP Tools

The MCP server exposes the following tools to AI assistants:

Service Management:

• service_list - List all database services in your project
• service_get - Get detailed information about a specific service
• service_create - Create new database services with configurable resources
• service_fork - Fork an existing database service to create an independent copy
• service_start - Start a stopped database service
• service_stop - Stop a running database service
• service_rename - Rename a database service
• service_resize - Resize a database service by changing CPU and memory allocation
• service_delete - Permanently delete a database service (asks you to confirm first if the service is tagged PROD)
• service_update_password - Set a new, randomly generated master password for a service (asks you to confirm first if the service is tagged PROD)
• service_logs - View logs for a database service

Service Metrics:

• service_metrics_available - List the metric names available for a service (hardware usage, PostgreSQL settings and activity, PgBouncer pools, TimescaleDB internals)
• service_metrics_details - Show a metric's description, type, default aggregation and labels
• service_metrics_series - Fetch a metric's time series over a time window, with label filters, an aggregation function, group by and bucket size

Database Operations:

• db_query - Execute SQL queries against a database service, passed inline or as a path to a SQL file, with support for parameterized queries, custom timeouts, and connection pooling
• db_schema - Display a service's database schema (tables, views, materialized views, enums, functions, procedures, indexes, triggers, and TimescaleDB hypertable/continuous aggregate metadata) as readable text for an agent's context
• db_extensions_list - List the PostgreSQL extensions installed in a service database, with each extension's version, schema, and description

Feedback:

• feedback - Submit feedback or a bug report to the Tiger Data team

The MCP server automatically uses your CLI authentication and configuration, so no additional setup is required beyond tiger auth login.

Proxied Tools

In addition to the service management tools listed above, the Tiger MCP server also proxies tools from a remote documentation MCP server. This feature provides AI assistants with semantic search capabilities for PostgreSQL, TimescaleDB, and Tiger Cloud documentation, as well as prompts/guides for various Tiger Cloud features.

The proxied documentation server (pg-aiguide) currently provides the following tools:

• view_skill - Retrieve comprehensive guides for Postgres and TimescaleDB features and best practices
• search_docs - Search PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB documentation using natural language queries

This proxy connection is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration.

To disable the documentation proxy:

tiger config set docs_mcp false

Agent Skills

Tiger CLI can install curated PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB skills directly into your coding agents:

# Interactive installation (prompts for install locations)

tiger skills install

Or name the locations directly

tiger skills install universal claude-code

Skills are installed for the current user. The universal location, ~/.agents/skills, is read by most coding agents (Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Devin). Claude Code, Kiro CLI, and Google Antigravity read their own skills directories, so they're separate locations (claude-code, kiro-cli, antigravity). Naming a client that reads ~/.agents/skills, such as cursor, selects universal. Use --skills-dir to install into a directory of