---
title: "Maintainer at ToolHive (Stacklok)"
description: "Maintainer of ToolHive, Stacklok's open-source platform for running MCP servers: reviews, triage, and fixes in the areas a production MCP gateway depends on."
date: "2026-10-12T07:00:00Z"
last_updated: "2026-10-14"
build_time: "2026-10-14T02:17:41Z"
position: "Maintainer"
functional_scope: "Authorization & MCP Proxy Contributor"
position_description: "Maintaining ToolHive, Stacklok's open-source MCP platform: reviewing and triaging changes in the areas a production MCP gateway depends on, and taking defects found in real use upstream, with a fix wherever I can write one."
company: "ToolHive (Stacklok)"
company_site: "https://stacklok.com/"
period_from: "2026-10-12"
location: "Remote"
employment_type: "Open source"
related_skills: ["mcp","oauth","kubernetes","quality-assurance"]
related_projects: ["mcp-gateway"]
keywords: ["ToolHive","Open Source Maintainer","Model Context Protocol","MCP Gateway","Authorization","Kubernetes Operator","Open Source Contribution"]
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
canonical: "https://www.alexfeel.info/experience/maintainer-at-toolhive/"
---

## Responsibilities

- **Review and Triage:** Reviewing pull requests and triaging issues in the parts of ToolHive I know from running it in production: authorization, MCP protocol handling, the proxy layer, and the Kubernetes operator. A change that reaches beyond them goes to the maintainers who know that subsystem best.

- **Defects Found in Real Use:** Taking defects found in real use upstream with a reproduction a maintainer can run as is and, where I can write it, the fix with a test, so the correction reaches every ToolHive user instead of living on as one deployment's local patch.

- **Technical Direction:** Weighing in on proposals and design decisions in the same areas, with evidence from a production deployment behind the opinion.

## How the Role Came About

ToolHive is the platform under the [corporate MCP gateway](/projects/mcp-gateway/) I built and run at Spotware. Connecting real AI clients to it turned up defects, and I took them upstream: issues with full reproductions and the responsible source line wherever I could pin it, then pull requests of my own. The maintainers fixed several of those reports themselves and reviewed and merged my pull requests; the first was credited in the [v0.46.0 release notes](https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/releases/tag/v0.46.0) as my first contribution to the project, and more followed across later releases and in the project's shared core library.

In October 2026 the maintainers invited me to join them, and [PR #6808](https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/pull/6808) added me to the project's [maintainers list](https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/blob/c88557fc320965566c5ebce3e16831ada75fc186/MAINTAINERS.md#L73). The whole trail is public: [my issues](https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/issues?q=is%3Aissue+author%3Aalex-feel+%28state%3Aopen+OR+state%3Aclosed%29) and [my pull requests](https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/issues?q=is%3Apr+author%3Aalex-feel+%28state%3Aopen+OR+state%3Aclosed%29) in the project.

The role and my work at Spotware strengthen each other: the gateway depends on ToolHive, so what I review and fix upstream is what the gateway runs on. For the gateway and the rest of that work, see [AI Product Manager at Spotware](/experience/ai-product-manager-at-spotware/).


## Site index

- [llms.txt](https://www.alexfeel.info/llms.txt)
- [Complete index](https://www.alexfeel.info/llms-index.txt)