MCP Server Setup

MCP lets Claude access your local machine — files, databases, APIs, and more.

What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard developed by Anthropic that lets Claude connect to external tools and data sources through a standardized interface. Instead of Claude being limited to what you paste in the chat, MCP lets it:

Read and write files on your local machine
Query your databases directly
Interact with APIs (GitHub, Slack, Jira)
Execute code in your local environment
Search the web
Interact with your browser

How MCP works

MCP uses a client-server architecture:

Claude Desktop (or Claude Code) is the MCP client
MCP servers are processes running on your machine that expose tools and resources
Claude discovers available tools and calls them when you ask it to do something

Step 1: Install Claude Desktop

MCP currently works with Claude Desktop (not the web version). Download it from claude.ai/download. Available for macOS and Windows.

Step 2: Install Node.js

Most MCP servers are Node.js packages. Install Node.js 18 or later from nodejs.org.

Step 3: Configure MCP servers

Claude Desktop reads its MCP configuration from a JSON file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

CONFIG — Add the filesystem server

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

Replace /Users/yourname/projects with the directory you want Claude to access. Restart Claude Desktop. You'll see MCP tools listed when you start a new chat.

Step 4: Useful MCP servers to install

Server	Package	What it gives Claude
Filesystem	@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem	Read/write your local files
PostgreSQL	@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres	Query your Postgres databases
SQLite	@modelcontextprotocol/server-sqlite	Query local SQLite files
GitHub	@modelcontextprotocol/server-github	Read repos, issues, PRs
Brave Search	@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search	Web search with Brave API
Puppeteer	@modelcontextprotocol/server-puppeteer	Browser automation
Fetch	@modelcontextprotocol/server-fetch	HTTP requests to any URL

Step 5: Add the Postgres MCP server

CONFIG — Add Postgres alongside filesystem

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/Users/yourname/projects"]
    },
    "postgres": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres",
               "postgresql://localhost/mydb?user=postgres&password=yourpassword"]
    }
  }
}

Now you can ask Claude: "Look at the orders table in my database and show me the top 5 customers by revenue this month." — and Claude will actually run the SQL against your local database.

SECURITY NOTE MCP servers run with your local user's permissions. The filesystem server can read and write any path you give it access to. Be careful about which directories you expose. Never give Claude access to system directories or directories containing secrets/credentials.

Using Claude Code for MCP

Claude Code (the command-line tool) also supports MCP. Run:

Terminal

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude mcp add filesystem /path/to/your/project
claude mcp list  # see connected servers

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