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What is Reacher?

Reacher is a self-hosted MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that turns Claude into a personal infrastructure agent. It gives Claude authenticated access to your machines, your APIs, and persistent memory — across every conversation. You run it on a VPS you own. Claude reaches it over HTTPS. Everything in between — SSH keys, API tokens, Tailscale mesh access — stays on your server.

Quickstart

Get Reacher running in under 10 minutes with Docker or bare Node.

Connect to Claude

Link your running server to Claude.ai as a custom connector.

Tools reference

Explore all six tools: ssh_exec, fetch_external, gist_kb, and more.

Add your own tools

Every tool is a single file. Add your own in minutes.

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The problem with official MCP connectors

Official connectors give you 40 tools when you need 3. They live in someone else’s sandbox, they don’t know your machines, and they reset when the conversation ends. Reacher is the alternative. One server you own. One authenticated proxy. Every API you care about is just an allowed domain away — no new connector, no new tool, just a new line in your config.

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What Reacher actually is

A trust boundary with tools attached. The VPS is neutral ground — not your laptop, not Anthropic’s servers, yours. When Claude calls ssh_exec to reach one of your machines, it goes through a server you control, authenticated with a key you own, over your Tailscale mesh. The whole chain is yours.

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The fetch_external insight

Adding GitHub support to Reacher is not “install the GitHub MCP connector.” It’s adding api.github.com to your allowed domains list. Same tool, same authenticated proxy, new target. Claude already knows REST APIs — it doesn’t need a dedicated github_list_prs tool. It just needs a way to call the API with your token, without you pasting it into every prompt. 
PROXY_ALLOWED_DOMAINS=api.github.com,api.linear.app,api.notion.com
That’s three integrations. One tool.

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Available tools

ToolWhat it does
ssh_execRun shell commands on any Tailscale device
tailscale_statusList all devices with online/offline status, IPs, OS
fetch_externalProxy HTTP requests with injected auth per domain
github_searchSearch GitHub for pull requests or commits
gist_kbRead/write a private knowledge base backed by GitHub Gists
browserControl a headless browser via CDP

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Architecture overview

Claude.ai  ──HTTPS──►  Reacher (your VPS)  ──Tailscale SSH──►  your machines
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                              ├──► fetch_external ──► api.github.com (with token)
                              ├──► gist_kb ──────────► GitHub Gists (with token)
                              └──► browser ──────────► headless browser (CDP)
Reacher is stateless — a new MCP transport handler is created per request. No session state is stored server-side. Your tokens never leave your server.

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Prerequisites

  • A Tailscale account with your devices enrolled
  • Node.js 18+ or Docker
  • A VPS or always-on machine reachable over HTTPS from Claude.ai
  • A Tailscale API key and a GitHub personal access token