MCP & Plugins Intermediate

MCP with stdio Transport

Connect a local MCP server using stdio — the most common transport for local tools

Command

"color:#9CA3AF;font-style:italic"># mcp-config.json
$ {
    "mcpServers": {
      "filesystem": {
        "command": "">npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@anthropic-ai/mcp-server-filesystem", "/home/user/projects"],
        "env": {}
      },
      "database": {
        "command": "python",
        "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_postgres"],
        "env": { "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://user:pass@localhost/mydb" }
      }
    }
  }

Response

// stdio transport: server runs as a child process
// Communication via stdin/stdout JSON-RPC
// Server torn down when session ends

Parsing Code

059669">">// Define 059669">">in config scopes:
059669">">// User:    ~/.claude/settings.json → mcpServers (all projects)
059669">">// Project: .claude/settings.json → mcpServers (team-shared)
059669">">// Local:   .claude/settings.local.json → mcpServers (gitignored)
059669">">// CLI:     --mcp-config 059669">'{...}' (one-shot)

Gotchas

! npx downloads packages on first run — may timeout on slow networks

! Set credentials in the env field, not as CLI arguments

Command

Response

Parsing Code

Gotchas

Related Recipes