Model Context Protocol (MCP) 1 cheatsheet

Model Context Protocol (MCP) 1: Testing and debugging

5 common Model Context Protocol (MCP) 1 tasks.

Inspect a Python server

Open the MCP Inspector in the browser to list and call a server's tools, resources and prompts.

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector python server.py

Inspect a built TypeScript server.

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node build/index.js

The JSON-RPC message a client sends to ask a server which tools it has.

{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "method": "tools/list"}

The JSON-RPC message that calls a tool with arguments.

{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 2, "method": "tools/call", "params": {"name": "add", "arguments": {"a": 2, "b": 3}}}

Follow the server logs when a server doesn't show up in Claude Desktop.

tail -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log