Record · desktop-commMCP serverOpen sourceVerified Sep 23, 2026

Desktop Commander MCP

Give Claude and other assistants terminal control, process management, file search and diff-based editing.

Visit Desktop Commander MCP →View source

Sources and review

Checked against public documentation on September 23, 2026. Suitability guidance is our editorial judgment; this is not a performance benchmark or an endorsement.

Best for

Doing hands-on development work from Claude Desktop or another chat client.

Avoid if

You're not comfortable granting an AI broad terminal and filesystem access on your machine.

About Desktop Commander MCP

Desktop Commander MCP lets an assistant execute long-running terminal commands, manage processes, search files and edit them with targeted search-and-replace, extending the reference filesystem server. It is aimed at doing development work from chat clients such as Claude Desktop using the host subscription rather than paying for API tokens, and can also be used from ChatGPT and Claude on the web.

Desktop Commander MCP is an open-source project written primarily in TypeScript, with 9.7k stars on GitHub. It was last updated in September 2026.

Add Desktop Commander MCP to your MCP client

Generated from the launch command in the project's README. Your client starts the server on demand.

Claude CodeRun in your terminal

claude mcp add desktop-commander-mcp -- npx -y @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest

Cursor~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "desktop-commander-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "servers": {
    "desktop-commander-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktopclaude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "desktop-commander-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Codex~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.desktop-commander-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]

Check the project's README for required accounts, keys and permissions before connecting. Setup guide for each client →

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