Getting Started with MCP Servers: Give Claude Code Superpowers

What is an MCP Server?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude Code call external tools — your GitHub repos, design files in Figma, live browser sessions, or any database — as if they were built-in capabilities. Think of each MCP server as a plugin that extends what the AI can do.

The 3 Most Useful MCP Servers for Developers

1. GitHub MCP Server

Lets Claude Code read issues, create PRs, and push commits directly. Instead of copy-pasting issue descriptions, you can say "fix issue #42" and Claude handles the git workflow.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "env": { "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "ghp_..." }
    }
  }
}

2. Playwright MCP

Gives Claude Code a real browser. Useful for writing E2E tests, scraping, or debugging front-end issues by actually clicking through the UI.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "playwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@playwright/mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

3. Figma Context MCP

Claude reads your Figma designs and translates them directly into component code. Dramatically speeds up the design-to-code step.

Adding an MCP Server to Claude Code

Add your MCP config to ~/.claude/mcp.json (global) or .claude/mcp.json (project-level). Restart Claude Code. Run /mcp in a session to verify the server connected.

Build Your Own

MCP servers are just JSON-RPC processes. The FastMCP library (Python/TypeScript) makes it easy to wrap any API in a few lines of code — database queries, internal tools, custom APIs all become first-class Claude capabilities.