setup-mcp

A setup guide that registers MCP servers from a project's approved list in project or user configuration.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to list available servers or add a named server from mcps.json to .mcp.json or Claude Code configuration.
Why use it?
It prevents accidental setup of unapproved servers and checks whether a listed server is already configured.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/kolodkin/devpowers/setup-mcp
Any agent
npx skills add kolodkin/devpowers --skill setup-mcp
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kolodkin/devpowers

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 108 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,687 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00108 $0.01687
Opus 5 $0.00054 $0.00843
Sonnet 5 $0.00022 $0.00337
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00169

Measured 2d ago against content hash f837d2ab700c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

setup-mcp scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/setup-mcp/SKILL.md · 121 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 121 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Setup MCP

Register one of the MCP servers listed in ./mcps.json into either the project's .mcp.json, the user's Claude Code config, or via a manual file edit. The skill is bounded — it will not install MCPs outside the manifest. To add a new server, append an entry to mcps.json first (see "Adding a new MCP" below).

Invocation

/setup-mcp                # list known MCPs, prompt to pick one
/setup-mcp <name>         # set up the named MCP

Flow

1. Resolve which MCP

Read ./mcps.json. It maps each <name> to its config template, prerequisites, detection tool, and source URL.

  • No argument → present a numbered list of <name> — description and ask the user to pick.
  • <name> in the manifest → use that entry.
  • <name> not in the manifest → tell the user: "<name> isn't in the bounded list. Append an entry to skills/setup-mcp/mcps.json first, then re-run." Show them an existing entry as a template. Stop — do not search the web for install instructions.

2. Detect whether it's already configured

Two checks:

  • Is the entry's detection_tool (e.g. mcp__github__list_pull_requests) visible in your tool list right now?
  • Is <name> already registered? Try claude mcp list 2>/dev/null and grep for it; also check ./.mcp.json (if it exists) for mcpServers.<name>.

If already configured, report where it's registered and stop. Don't reconfigure unless the user explicitly asks ("force", "reconfigure", "overwrite").

3. Verify prerequisites

For each command in the entry's required_cli, run command -v <cmd> >/dev/null && echo OK || echo MISSING. If anything is missing, surface the entry's notes (which should explain how to install it) and stop. Don't write any config until prerequisites are in place.

4. Show the proposed config

Print the exact JSON snippet that would be added under mcpServers.<name> — i.e. the entry's config_template verbatim. Also list any required_env and auth_alternatives so the user knows which env vars / tokens need to be set in their shell.

Read the full file on GitHub · 121 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 121 lines · 108 tokens per session scan A f837d2ab700c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

setup-mcp is a skill published in the GitHub repository kolodkin/devpowers (2 stars, last pushed 23d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 108 tokens to every session and 1,687 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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