MCP (Model Context Protocol)

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting language models to external tools and data sources. Think of it like USB for AI tools, a standardized way to plug in new capabilities without building custom integrations for each one.

Last reviewed: February 26, 2026. Verify CLI flags and auth flows against current vendor docs before rollout.

Adding MCP servers (Claude Code)

claude mcp add --transport http -s user context7 https://mcp.context7.com/mcp

Configuration scopes -s

Scope	flag	Stored in	Use for
User	-s user	~/.claude.json (global)	Personal utilities across all projects
Local	-s local	~/.claude.json (project path)	Personal servers, sensitive credentials
Project	-s project	.mcp.json (repo root)	Team-shared tools, project services

Team configuration with .mcp.json

Check this into your repo so the whole team gets the same MCP servers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "postgres": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bytebase/dbhub", "--dsn", "${DATABASE_URL}"]
    },
    "sentry": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.sentry.dev/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Environment variables like ${DATABASE_URL} expand at startup. Use ${VAR:-default} for fallback values.

OAuth authentication

Some MCP servers require OAuth. After adding the server, authenticate inside Claude Code:

/mcp

This opens a browser login flow. Credentials are cached locally.

Popular MCP servers

Server	What it does
GitHub	PRs, issues, code search, repo management
Sentry	Error monitoring, crash analysis
PostgreSQL / MySQL	Direct database queries
Slack	Messages, channel history
Notion	Read/write Notion pages and databases
Jira / Asana	Task and issue management

Browse the full directory at github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers.

MCP in other tools

Cursor also supports MCP servers, configured in its settings UI or via JSON config. The protocol is tool-agnostic by design — an MCP server built for Claude Code works with any MCP-compatible client.