How to install an MCP server

You do not install these on a website. The host (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf) launches a local process and exposes its tools to the model. Each server page has a JSON block ready to paste. This page is the host side.

Claude Desktop

File is always claude_desktop_config.json. Folder depends on the OS:

OS	Config file
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`
Windows	`%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json` (usually `C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Claude\`)
Linux	`~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`

macOS/Windows: Settings → Developer → Edit Config creates the file if it is missing. Linux: create the folder if you have not launched the app yet. Official Linux is the .deb; unofficial builds use the same path.

No other desktop OS. iPhone/Android hosts do not launch these local npx/uvx processes. ChromeOS uses the Linux path inside the Linux container. WSL is Linux inside Windows: a Windows Claude/Cursor reads %APPDATA%; Claude or Cursor installed inside WSL reads ~/.config/Claude/ and ~/.cursor/mcp.json. The two homes do not share a file.

Open that file. Merge the mcpServers object from a server page. Multiple servers go side by side in the same object.
Replace placeholder paths and tokens. On Windows use C:\\Users\\you\\project, not /path/to. Restart Claude Desktop completely (Quit / Exit, not just close the window).
Start a new chat and ask “what MCP tools do you have?” If the server is missing, the host log usually says the process failed to spawn — bad path, or npx/uvx not on the PATH the GUI app sees.

You need Node (for npx) or uv (for uvx) on your PATH. Official reference servers use one or the other; we show which on the page.

Cursor

Same mcpServers JSON. Two places:

Scope	macOS / Linux	Windows
This project	`.cursor/mcp.json` in the repo root
This user	`~/.cursor/mcp.json`	`%USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json`

Paste the block. Same shape as Claude Desktop (command / args / env).
Reload MCP in Cursor settings, or restart Cursor.

Windsurf and other hosts use the same idea with their own file name. If a host only accepts a remote URL, use servers that have one (GitHub official) — most of this list is local stdio.

A minimal first config

Filesystem on one project folder. After this works, add GitHub or Fetch — not five servers at once.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/path/to/your/project"]
    }
  }
}

If it does not show up

JSON trailing commas — the file must be strict JSON.
npx / uvx not on the PATH the host sees: macOS GUI apps miss Homebrew; Windows GUI apps miss nvm if it only lives in a terminal profile; Linux the same if Node is only in .bashrc.
Wrong absolute path for the folder or the repo.
Token in the JSON but the API rejected it — the process starts, then every tool call fails.