MCP servers in Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop reads MCP servers from an "mcpServers" object, but the config file is stdio-only: it cannot dial a remote URL directly. To reach a remote server you bridge it locally by running "npx mcp-remote <url>" as the command. Native remote Connectors exist on paid plans, but not through this config file, so the bridge is the portable path.

Where the config lives

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

Worked example: Fetch

Here's the exact config to add the Fetch MCP server to Claude Desktop. Every server in the directory has a ready-to-paste Claude Desktop config like this.

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

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

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-fetch"
      ]
    }
  }
}