Claude MCP Servers: Complete Setup & Configuration Guide (2026)

Category: AI Coding Difficulty: Advanced Updated: 2026-05-26

Complete guide to setting up Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for Claude. Connect Claude to databases, APIs, file systems, and custom tools.

What is MCP?

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Anthropic's open standard for connecting AI models to external tools and data sources. MCP servers act as bridges between Claude and your infrastructure.

Setup Instructions

# Claude Desktop: Edit claude_desktop_config.json {   "mcpServers": {     "filesystem": {       "command": "npx",       "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/path/to/project"]     },     "github": {       "command": "npx",       "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]     }   } }

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