# MCP Reference Servers

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

## Facts
- **Category:** [MCP Servers](https://agentsearchengine.app/category/mcp-servers)
- **Type:** MCP server
- **Pricing:** Open source
- **GitHub stars:** 90,558
- **Language:** TypeScript
- **License:** MIT AND Apache-2.0
- **Last repo activity:** today (Sep 22, 2026)
- **Official site:** https://modelcontextprotocol.io
- **Source code:** https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers
- **Listing on Agent Search Engine:** https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/mcp-reference-servers
- **Data verified:** September 2026

## 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.

## Connect to an MCP client
Launch command from the project's README: `npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-memory`

### Claude Code (Run in your terminal)

```shell
claude mcp add mcp-reference-servers -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-memory
```

### Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json)

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

### VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

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

### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

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

### Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)

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

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