Setup

Install and configure the Pipekit MCP server for Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, and other MCP clients.

Run the Pipekit CLI as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server so LLM clients can read and modify Pipekit resources on your behalf.

Prerequisites

• The Pipekit CLI installed (see Reference > CLI > Install).

• You have run pipekit login at least once, so that a token is on disk at ~/.pipekit/token (or $PIPEKIT_CONFIG_DIR/token if that env var is set).

• An MCP-capable LLM client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, Goose, etc.).

The MCP server reads your token fresh on every authenticated tool call. If your token expires, run pipekit login again. The next tool call picks up the new token without restarting the server.

Configuration recipes

The snippets below all assume the pipekit binary is on your PATH. If it isn't, replace pipekit with the absolute path (e.g. /usr/local/bin/pipekit).

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipekit": {
      "command": "pipekit",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The Pipekit tools appear under the tool/plug icon in the prompt area.

Cursor

Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or the project-scoped .cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipekit": {
      "command": "pipekit",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Reload the Cursor window. Pipekit tools become available to the agent.

Claude Code

The recommended path is the CLI command, which writes the configuration to ~/.claude.json (user scope) for you:

claude mcp add pipekit pipekit mcp

For project-scoped configuration, create or edit .mcp.json in the project root with the same mcpServers block shown above for Claude Desktop and Cursor.

Generic MCP-compatible client

Any client that supports the stdio transport can run the server directly. The minimum command is:

pipekit mcp

The server speaks newline-delimited JSON-RPC over stdio per the MCP specification.

Verifying the install

Once your client is connected, ask the agent to call pipekit_version. If you get back a Pipekit version string, the server is running and the agent has access.

If pipekit_version returns but other tools fail with 401 unauthorized, your local CLI token isn't on disk. Run pipekit login.

Logging

pipekit mcp honors the same --log-level and --log-format flags as the rest of the CLI:

pipekit mcp --log-level=debug --log-format=json

Logs go to stderr so they don't interfere with the MCP protocol stream on stdout.

What's next

• Tool Inventory: every tool the server exposes and which are destructive.

• Security & Transports: stdio vs HTTP, auth, identity.

• Troubleshooting: common failure modes.

• Patterns: worked examples of using AI with Pipekit.