Fast Time Server

ibm/fast-time-server/standalone

Tiny MCP time server over Streamable HTTP with tools, resources and prompts

Deploys IBM’s fast-time-server — a tiny, single-binary MCP server for time and timezone operations — into a local Kind cluster. A handy counterpart when testing MCP proxies, gateways, or catalogs against a genuinely foreign server implementation: it speaks Streamable HTTP and exposes tools, resources, and prompts from a 7 MB image that starts instantly.

Endpoint: http://localhost:30801 from the host, http://fast-time-server:8080 from inside the cluster — MCP is served at the root path.
Tools: get_system_time, convert_time (time-dependent by nature — assert on shapes, not values).
Authentication is off by default; set the authToken variable to require a static bearer token.

Install gck#

go install github.com/gravitee-io-labs/gck@latest

For other installation methods, see Installation .

Usage#

Create#

gck create --from ibm/fast-time-server

Cleanup#

gck delete

Quick Start#

Run an MCP handshake:

curl -s http://localhost:30801/ \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"quickstart","version":"1.0"}}}' -i

The response carries an Mcp-Session-Id header; pass it back on subsequent calls (tools/list, tools/call, resources/list, prompts/list).

To require authentication, deploy with a token — unauthenticated requests are then rejected with 401:

gck create --from ibm/fast-time-server --set authToken=my-secret

A GET /health endpoint reports liveness.

Testing something that fronts several MCP servers at once? Compose this context with another server product:

gck create --from fastmcp/standalone --from ibm/fast-time-server

Endpoints

Services this context exposes on your machine after gck create, including the ones it inherits from the contexts it composes. Rows marked with a flag only exist when you pass it.

Service	URL	Notes	From
Fast Time Server	`http://localhost:30801`	MCP at /	`ibm/fast-time-server/standalone`

Variables

Template variables overridable with --set. Use --set path.segments.var=value to target a specific context in the composition chain.

Variable	Default	Origin	Description
`clusterName`	`fast-time-server`	`ibm/fast-time-server/standalone`	Name of the Kind cluster
`imageRepository`	`ghcr.io/ibm/fast-time-server`	`ibm/fast-time-server/standalone`	fast-time-server Docker image repository
`imageTag`	`latest`	`ibm/fast-time-server/standalone`	fast-time-server Docker image tag
`authToken`	(empty)	`ibm/fast-time-server/standalone`	Static bearer token callers must present; empty disables authentication