MCP Servers

MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets Claude connect to external tools — your local filesystem, GitHub, a database, or a browser — so it can read and act on real data during a conversation.

This is an optional, more advanced feature. You don’t need it to use Claude Desktop effectively.

Enable a server

MCP servers are configured via a JSON file that Claude Desktop reads on startup.

1. Open Claude Desktop
2. Go to Settings → Developer
3. Click Edit Config — this opens the config file in a text editor
4. Add your server config and save
5. Restart Claude Desktop

Example: filesystem MCP

The filesystem server lets Claude read (and optionally write) files on your computer.

Add this to your config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "/Users/yourname/projects"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Replace /Users/yourname/projects with the directory you want Claude to access. On Windows, use a path like C:\\Users\\yourname\\projects.

After restarting, Claude can read files from that directory when you ask it to.

What’s possible

Some commonly used MCP servers:

• Filesystem — read and write local files
• GitHub — read repos, issues, and pull requests
• Browser — fetch and read web pages
• SQLite / PostgreSQL — query a local database

Find more at modelcontextprotocol.io/servers.