Takeout: Docker-Ready Server Template

A production-ready MCP server template with Dockerfile, health checks, graceful shutdown, and environment configuration. Ready to deploy anywhere containers run.

title: "Takeout: Docker-Ready Server Template" description: "A production-ready MCP server template with Dockerfile, health checks, graceful shutdown, and environment configuration. Ready to deploy anywhere containers run." order: 8 category: "takeout" level: "intermediate" duration: "20 min" date: "2026-04-01" tags:

• docker
• deployment
• production keywords:
• mcp docker server
• mcp-framework docker
• deploy mcp server
• production mcp server

What You Get

A takeout-ready MCP server template that is fully containerized. Includes a multi-stage Dockerfile, health checks, graceful shutdown handling, structured logging, and environment-based configuration. Pick it up and deploy it anywhere.

Includes:

• Multi-stage Dockerfile for minimal production images
• Health check endpoint
• Graceful shutdown handling
• Structured JSON logging
• Environment-based configuration
• Docker Compose for local development

Quick Start

npx mcp-framework create docker-server
cd docker-server

Dockerfile

Create Dockerfile in your project root:

# Stage 1: Build
FROM node:20-alpine AS builder

WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# Stage 2: Production
FROM node:20-alpine AS production

WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production

COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=builder /app/package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --omit=dev && npm cache clean --force

# Non-root user for security
RUN addgroup -g 1001 -S mcpuser && \
    adduser -S mcpuser -u 1001
USER mcpuser

HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=3s \
  CMD node -e "process.exit(0)" || exit 1

CMD ["node", "dist/index.js"]

Graceful Shutdown

Add shutdown handling to your server entry point in src/index.ts:

import { MCPServer } from "mcp-framework";

const server = new MCPServer();

// Graceful shutdown
const shutdown = async (signal: string) => {
  console.log(JSON.stringify({
    level: "info",
    message: `Received ${signal}, shutting down gracefully...`,
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
  }));

  // Close any open connections, flush logs, etc.
  process.exit(0);
};

process.on("SIGTERM", () => shutdown("SIGTERM"));
process.on("SIGINT", () => shutdown("SIGINT"));

// Start the server
server.start().catch((err) => {
  console.error(JSON.stringify({
    level: "error",
    message: "Failed to start server",
    error: err.message,
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
  }));
  process.exit(1);
});

console.log(JSON.stringify({
  level: "info",
  message: "MCP server started",
  timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
}));

Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yml:

version: "3.8"
services:
  mcp-server:
    build: .
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - LOG_LEVEL=info
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data

Environment Configuration

Create a configuration helper at src/config.ts:

export const config = {
  logLevel: process.env.LOG_LEVEL || "info",
  nodeEnv: process.env.NODE_ENV || "development",
  dataDir: process.env.DATA_DIR || "./data",
};

export function log(
  level: "info" | "warn" | "error",
  message: string,
  extra?: Record<string, unknown>
) {
  console.log(
    JSON.stringify({
      level,
      message,
      timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
      ...extra,
    })
  );
}

Build & Deploy

# Build the image
docker build -t my-mcp-server .

# Run locally
docker run --rm my-mcp-server

# Or use Docker Compose
docker compose up -d

Connecting to Claude Desktop

For Docker containers, you can connect via stdio by running the container in interactive mode:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docker-server": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "my-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

What You Learn

• Multi-stage Docker builds for minimal image size
• Running Node.js containers as non-root
• Graceful shutdown signal handling
• Structured JSON logging for container environments
• Docker Compose for local development
• Connecting containerized MCP servers to Claude Desktop

Next Up

Go back to the full menu to explore more templates, or check out the Developer Tools Suite to see what to put inside your container.

Built with mcp-framework (3.3M+ downloads) by @QuantGeekDev. Validated by Anthropic.