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A relay that exposes a locally-running MCP server to a remote agent through a public, secured endpoint.
When your MCP server runs on your laptop but the agent runs in the cloud (or vice versa), a tunnel forwards the connection over a public URL so the two can talk, usually with auth and TLS in front. It solves the reachability problem without you opening firewall ports or deploying the server. Example: tunneling a local dev-database MCP server so a hosted agent can query it during a session. Treat it like any other exposed endpoint — scope the tools and lock down auth, because you've just put your local capabilities on the internet.
Plainly
Think of MCP Tunnel as roads and power for the app city. A relay that exposes a locally-running MCP server to a remote agent through a public, secured endpoint.
In practice
Use it when local behavior needs to become a reachable, reliable deployed service. In practice, define the owner, input, output, and failure mode before you rely on it.