MCP server setup

MCP server setup is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from pincerhq/pincer. It costs 54 tokens per session (556 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A setup guide for connecting Pincer, an AI coding agent, to MCP servers. MCP is a standard way for an agent to use outside tools such as GitHub, Slack, databases, filesystems, or browsers.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to add or troubleshoot external MCP servers in Pincer, or to expose Pincer's own tools to other MCP clients. It covers configuration, authentication, startup checks, and tool availability.
Why use it?
It removes the need to guess where connection settings go, how to choose a connection method, or how to provide authentication. It also explains how to diagnose failed connections.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to add or troubleshoot external MCP servers in Pincer, or to expose Pincer's own tools to other MCP clients. It covers configuration, authentication, startup checks, and tool availability.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup
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.

Any agent
npx skills add pincerhq/pincer --skill mcp-server-setup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pincerhq/pincer

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for MCP server setup

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for MCP server setup

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pincerhq/pincer/mcp-server-setup.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 54 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 556 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 5.1 $0.00054 $0.00556
Opus 5 $0.00027 $0.00278
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00111
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00056

Measured 9d ago against content hash 323de755531a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

MCP server setup 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 9d 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.

src/pincer/skills/mcp-server-setup/SKILL.md · 48 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 48 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

MCP server setup

Pincer is both an MCP client (connects to external MCP servers like GitHub, Slack, Postgres, filesystem, browser automation) and an MCP server (exposes Pincer's own tools to external MCP clients via OAuth 2.0). Skills and MCP servers now coexist — connecting an MCP server does not disable skills.

Connecting an external MCP server (client mode)

  1. Install the optional extra: uv pip install "pincer-agent[mcp]".
  2. Add a [[mcp.servers]] block to pincer.toml (or the equivalent env vars) with the server's name, transport (stdio/SSE/HTTP), command or URL, and any required auth (API key, OAuth token).
  3. Restart the agent (pincer run). On startup you'll see MCP '<name>' connected or a failed to connect warning in the console — check that message first if something's wrong.
  4. MCP tools appear in the agent's tool list identically to built-in tools; the LLM calls them the same way, with the same approval flow.

For the full config reference (transports, auth schemes, scopes, examples for popular servers), load the detailed guide at docs/guides/mcp-guide.md in the repository, or reference it via load_skill_reference if it's bundled alongside this skill.

Exposing Pincer as an MCP server

Pincer's own tools can be exposed to external MCP clients (Claude Desktop, other agents) via OAuth 2.0 with PKCE and scope-based access control. Which tools are exposed by default is controlled by an expose_tools allowlist in the MCP config — read-only tools are typically exposed by default, execute/write tools are opt-in.

Troubleshooting

  • "MCP config load failed" at startup: check pincer.toml syntax — the agent falls back to running without MCP rather than crashing.
  • A server shows connected but its tools aren't callable: check the server's own scope/permission settings, not just Pincer's config.
  • Too many tools registered (>100 from one server): the agent warns that LLM tool selection may degrade — consider filtering which tools that server exposes.

Read the full file on GitHub · 48 lines

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. 9d ago First seen · 48 lines · 54 tokens per session scan A 323de755531a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

MCP server setup is a skill published in the GitHub repository pincerhq/pincer (50 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 556 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-30.

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