A Super Simple Guide to Getting Started with Claude MCP

Want to learn more about MCP? Check out these resources:

• Introducing the Model Context Protocol
• Model Context Protocol

Hey there! Let's talk about MCP (Model Context Protocol), a cool open-source standard developed by Anthropic. Think of it as a way to supercharge Claude by letting it safely access and work with all sorts of different data sources. Pretty neat, right?

You can think of MCP-enabled servers as apps or agents for Claude - they're like power-ups that give Claude new abilities to handle more complex tasks by combining different types of data.

Now, I'll be honest - the MCP ecosystem is still in its early days, especially when it comes to distributing these MCP agents. So if you want to use these awesome agents to boost your Claude's capabilities, you'll need to roll up your sleeves and do a bit of basic setup. But don't worry - it's not too complicated!

In this guide, I'll walk you through how to get an MCP agent up and running, and show you how to use it with a simple example. Let's break it down into easy steps:

1. Find a cool MCP Server that interests you on MCP Server Cloud
2. Get your computer ready with some basic tools
3. Set up your Claude client to work with the MCP Server
4. Try out your new MCP Server with a simple task

Finding Your Perfect MCP Server

Head over to MCP Server Cloud - it's like a app store for MCP Servers! You can browse through all the available servers and check out what each one does.

Currently, the MCP servers are organized into these 11 categories:

• Browser Automation
• Cloud Platforms
• Communication
• Databases
• File Systems
• Knowledge & Memory
• Location Services
• Monitoring
• Search
• Version Control
• Other Tools

Just browse through and find something that catches your eye!

Getting Your Computer Ready

Here's what you'll need:

1. macOS or Windows
2. The latest version of Claude Desktop
3. uv 0.4.18 or higher (check with uv --version)
4. Git (check with git --version)
5. SQLite (check with sqlite3 --version)

First things first - you'll need either macOS or Windows, and the latest Claude Desktop app installed. If you haven't got Claude Desktop yet, just pop over to https://claude.ai/download and grab the version for your system.

For macOS users (which is what we'll focus on here), we'll need to install a few extra tools. The easiest way is to use Homebrew, the popular package manager for macOS. Don't have Homebrew? No problem! Just visit https://brew.sh/ and follow their super simple installation instructions.

Once you've got Homebrew, here's the magic one-liner that installs everything you need:

brew install uv git node sqlite3

Setting Up Claude with Your MCP Server

This is where things get a tiny bit technical (remember when I said the ecosystem was still young? This is what I meant!). We need to manually add the MCP server to Claude's configuration file.

After installing and logging into Claude Desktop, here's what to do:

1. Click the settings icon in the top-left corner

2. Click on the "Developer" tab on the left

3. Look for the MCP Server configuration section

If you're starting fresh, you'll see an empty configuration. Click "Edit Config" and Claude will open the folder containing claude_desktop_config.json. Open this file in your favorite text editor.

Let's say you want to add the Sentry MCP Server. Just add this configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
      "sentry": {
          "command": "uvx",
          "args": ["mcp-server-sentry", "--auth-token", "YourAuthToken"]
      }
  }
}

Save the file, restart Claude Desktop, and boom! Your new MCP Server should show up in the Developer tab.

Taking Your New Sentry MCP Server for a Spin

Now for the fun part! Let's try using the Sentry MCP Server to analyze an issue:

Just ask Claude something like: "Analysis this sentry issue: the issue link"

The first time you use it in a chat, Claude will ask for permission to use the Sentry MCP Server - just click "Allow" and you're good to go!

Claude will then analyze the issue and give you its insights. Pretty cool, right?

And there you have it - you've just set up and used your first MCP Server! Not so scary after all, was it?