mcp-client-integration

MCP Client Integration

Wire any MCP server into the client that will consume it — declaratively for IDEs, programmatically for custom apps.

When to Use

• Installing an MCP server into Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or Cursor
• Building a custom MCP client (web app, CLI, agent framework)
• Debugging "server failed to start" or "no tools showing up"
• Sharing MCP config across a team

Config File Locations

Client	Config path
Claude Desktop (macOS)	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Desktop (Windows)	%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Code	~/.claude.json (user and local scope) or .mcp.json (project scope); add with claude mcp add
Cursor	~/.cursor/mcp.json (user) or .cursor/mcp.json (project)

Declarative Install — stdio Server

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

Declarative Install — Remote (Streamable HTTP) Server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "linear": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.linear.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code supports OAuth for remote servers: with no headers, authenticate from /mcp in a browser. For servers that take a static token, add "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${TOKEN}" } (Claude Code expands ${VAR} and ${VAR:-default} in command, args, env, url, and headers). The legacy SSE transport ("type": "sse", often a /sse URL) is deprecated; prefer a server's Streamable HTTP endpoint.

Project-Scoped Config

Check a .mcp.json into the repo so teammates auto-inherit the right servers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "postgres-dev": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bytebase/dbhub", "--dsn", "${DEV_DATABASE_URL:-postgresql://readonly@localhost:5432/dev}"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code reads this on startup. Add .mcp.json to .gitignore only if it contains secrets; otherwise commit it.