Free tool

Build a valid MCP connection block for Claude Code

MCP is how Claude Code reaches an outside tool: your issue tracker, a database, a hosted service. Setting one up means adding a small block of settings, and there is one easy slip that quietly stops it from loading. This asks you a few plain questions and gives you a block that is right by construction, so it just works.

Pick how the tool runs, fill in what it needs, and copy the block. The bottom of the page shows where it goes, including a way with no typing at all.

Name it

A short name for this connection, which is how you will refer to it. Lowercase is usual, and spaces become hyphens.

What do you want to call it? Usually the name of the tool, like github or notion.

How does it run?

Two kinds. Some tools run as a small program on your own machine. Others are already hosted and you connect to a web address. The tool's own setup page will tell you which it is; if it gives you a web address, it is hosted.

A program on my computer. It starts with a command, often one that begins with npx, uvx, python, or node. A hosted tool at a web address. The common kind for hosted services. Pick this if you were given a link ending in something like /mcp. A hosted tool, older streaming style. Only if the tool's setup page specifically says to use it.

If it runs on your computer

Fill these in only for a program on your machine. Copy them straight from the tool's setup page.

The command that starts it Just the program, like npx or python. The rest goes below. Anything after the command, one per line Each word or flag on its own line, in order. Settings it needs, one per line as NAME=value Often an API key. See the note on secrets below.

If it is at a web address

Fill these in only for a hosted tool.

The web address The link the tool gave you, in full. Any headers, one per line as Name: value Usually how you pass a key, like Authorization: Bearer ...

A word on secrets

If a value is a secret like an API key, do not paste the real key here. Write it as ${MY_KEY} instead, then set MY_KEY in your environment. Claude fills in the real value when it runs, and your secret never gets written into a file you might share. The examples above already do this.

Your connection block

This updates as you answer. Nothing here leaves your browser.

Where it goes

The easy way, with no typing: hit Copy, then paste the whole thing to Claude and say add this connection for me. It knows where the file lives and how to merge it in.

By hand: it goes in a file named .mcp.json at the top of your project, so everyone on the project shares it. If you already have one with other connections in it, add this one inside the same mcpServers block rather than making a second file.

The first time Claude Code sees a connection from a project file, it asks you to approve it before using it. That is on purpose, so a project you clone cannot reach out on its own.

The slip this avoids

The usual reason a hosted connection silently does nothing is a web address with no kind marked next to it. Claude then treats it as a program to run, fails to find one, and skips it. This tool always pairs the two, so the block it gives you does not have that hole.

Build a valid MCP connection block for Claude Code

Your connection block

Where it goes

The slip this avoids

Get the next one