Tool cheatsheet

Model Context Protocol (MCP) 1 Cheatsheet

Build MCP servers in Python and TypeScript, test them with the Inspector, and connect them to Claude Code and Claude Desktop.

Python server

Install the Python SDK — Install the SDK with its command-line tools.
Create a Python server with a tool — Define a function the model can call. The docstring and type hints become the tool's description and schema.
Expose a resource — Share read-only data that clients can load into context, here with a URI template.
Expose a prompt template — Offer a reusable prompt that clients can show to users.
Serve over HTTP — Run the server as a remote endpoint with the streamable HTTP transport instead of stdio.
Log without breaking stdio — A stdio server must not write to stdout, which carries protocol messages. Log to stderr.
Test with the dev server — Run the server with the MCP Inspector attached.
Install into Claude Desktop — Register the server in Claude Desktop's configuration.

Install the TypeScript SDK — Install the SDK and Zod, used to describe tool inputs.
Create a TypeScript server with a tool — Register a tool with a Zod input schema and run the server over stdio.

Inspect a Python server — Open the MCP Inspector in the browser to list and call a server's tools, resources and prompts.
Inspect a Node.js server — Inspect a built TypeScript server.
List tools with a raw request — The JSON-RPC message a client sends to ask a server which tools it has.
Call a tool with a raw request — The JSON-RPC message that calls a tool with arguments.
Read Claude Desktop's MCP logs (macOS) — Follow the server logs when a server doesn't show up in Claude Desktop.

Add a remote HTTP server — Connect Claude Code to a remote MCP server by URL.
Add a local stdio server — Run a local server as a subprocess. Everything after -- is the command that starts it.
Add your own Python server — Register a server you wrote, started with Python.
Share a server with your team — Store the server in .mcp.json at the project root, so everyone who clones the repository gets it.
List configured servers — Show the MCP servers Claude Code knows about.
Show one server's details — Print a server's configuration and status.
Remove a server — Remove a server from the configuration.
Check server status inside Claude Code — Type this in a session to see connection status and authenticate with remote servers.
Configure servers in .mcp.json — A project-level configuration file. It can expand environment variables so secrets stay out of the file.

Add a server to Claude Desktop — Add this to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop. On macOS the file is in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/.

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