Record · mcp-referencMCP serverOpen sourceVerified Sep 23, 2026

MCP Reference Servers

The MCP steering group's reference servers: Everything, Fetch, Filesystem, Git, Memory, Sequential Thinking and Time.

Visit MCP Reference Servers →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

Learning how MCP servers work and adding basic filesystem, git, fetch or memory tools to a client.

Avoid if

You need production-hardened servers; the maintainers present these as reference examples and ask you to apply your own security safeguards.

About MCP Reference Servers

The modelcontextprotocol/servers repository holds the small set of reference servers maintained by the MCP steering group: Everything (a test server), Fetch, Filesystem with configurable access controls, Git, a knowledge-graph Memory server, Sequential Thinking and Time. Older servers such as GitHub, GitLab and Brave Search were archived, several in favour of official vendor servers. The maintainers describe these as educational reference implementations rather than production-ready software.

MCP Reference Servers is an open-source project written primarily in TypeScript, with 91k stars on GitHub. It was last updated in September 2026.

Add MCP Reference Servers 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 mcp-reference-servers -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-memory

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-reference-servers": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "servers": {
    "mcp-reference-servers": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktopclaude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-reference-servers": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]
    }
  }
}

Codex~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.mcp-reference-servers]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]

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

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