Claude Desktop Setup

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop installed on macOS
• Node.js 20 or later
• MetaMCP installed (npm install -g @mentu/metamcp) or available via npx

Automatic setup

Run the init command:

metamcp init

MetaMCP auto-detects Claude Desktop and writes the server entry to its config file at:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Expected output:

Binary: /path/to/metamcp/dist/index.js
  + Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (updated)
 
Done: 1 configured, 0 failed

The init command also configures other detected clients (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Codex). Use --yes to skip confirmation prompts, or --json for structured output.

Manual setup

Edit the Claude Desktop config file directly:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add MetaMCP under mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metamcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@mentu/metamcp", "--config", "/absolute/path/to/.mcp.json"]
    }
  }
}

If you installed MetaMCP globally, you can use metamcp directly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metamcp": {
      "command": "metamcp",
      "args": ["--config", "/absolute/path/to/.mcp.json"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop

After editing the config, restart Claude Desktop for changes to take effect. The MCP server connection is established at startup.

Verify the connection

In Claude Desktop, ask the assistant to discover available tools:

What tools are available via MetaMCP?

This triggers mcp_discover with no arguments, which returns the list of connected servers and their tool counts. You should see entries for each server defined in your .mcp.json.

Troubleshooting

"Server not found" or no tools appear:

• Check that the --config path points to a valid .mcp.json file.
• Verify the path is absolute, not relative.

"command not found" error:

• Node.js may not be in Claude Desktop's PATH. Use the full path to node and pass the MetaMCP entry point as an argument:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metamcp": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/node",
      "args": ["/path/to/metamcp/dist/index.js", "--config", "/path/to/.mcp.json"]
    }
  }
}

Config file does not exist:

• The init command creates the file if it does not exist. For manual setup, create the file with the JSON structure shown above.

See Troubleshooting for more diagnostic steps.

Next steps

• Claude Code Setup for CLI integration
• Quick Start for creating your first .mcp.json