Automate MCP Server Installations

mcp-installer is a meta MCP server whose only job is installing other MCP servers on your behalf. Once connected to Claude, you can simply ask it to install an MCP server hosted on npm or PyPI, or point it at a local directory, and it handles the setup for you instead of you manually editing configuration files.

Use it when you regularly discover new MCP servers you want to try and don't want to hand-edit claude_desktop_config.json each time - Claude can add the server, pass through arguments, and set required environment variables (like access tokens) directly from a conversational request. Do not use it if you need fine-grained control over exactly how a server's configuration is structured, or if the target server isn't distributed via npm, PyPI, or as a local path Claude can reach - npx (for Node servers) and uv (for Python servers) must be installed on the host machine for the corresponding installs to work.

• Install MCP servers published on npm (Node.js packages run via npx).
• Install MCP servers published on PyPI (Python packages run via uv).
• Install an MCP server directly from a local filesystem path.
• Pass through package arguments (e.g., allowed directories for a filesystem server) as part of the install request.
• Set environment variables required by the installed server (e.g., API tokens) at install time.

Add it to your claude_desktop_config.json (~/Library/Application Support/Claude on macOS, C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Claude on Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-installer": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@anaisbetts/mcp-installer"]
    }
  }
}

Once connected, install other servers conversationally, for example:

Hey Claude, install the MCP server named mcp-server-fetch

Hey Claude, install the @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem package as an MCP server. Use ['/Users/anibetts/Desktop'] for the arguments

Install the server @modelcontextprotocol/server-github. Set the environment variable GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN to '1234567890'

npx and uv must already be available on the machine for Node and Python server installs respectively.

Claude Desktop users who frequently add new MCP servers and want to do it through a natural-language request instead of manually editing JSON configuration each time.