Give Claude and other assistants terminal control, process management, file search and diff-based editing.
Sources and review #
Checked against public documentation on . Suitability guidance is our editorial judgment; this is not a performance benchmark or an endorsement.
Doing hands-on development work from Claude Desktop or another chat client.
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 listed in this index written primarily in TypeScript, with 10k stars on GitHub. Its latest recorded repository push was in November 2026; that is not an ASE editorial review date.
Before connecting: access and data #
This record's specific permissions have not been reviewed by ASE. Read the publisher's documentation before copying setup or connecting.
- List the accounts, files and services the enabled tools can read, change or execute. Check your actual credentials and discovered tools.
- Use narrowly scoped credentials and read-only mode where supported. Review proposed writes before approving them; a generated configuration does not apply these limits for you.
- Local launch is not local-only data processing. External services receive requests, and your client may pass tool results to its model provider. Check both destinations before sharing private data.
- Keep keys and browser session files out of shared config, repositories and screenshots. Know how to disconnect the server and separately revoke its credentials or account sessions.
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 Code #
claude mcp add desktop-commander-mcp -- npx -y @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest
Cursor #
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
}
}
}
VS Code #
{
"servers": {
"desktop-commander-mcp": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
}
}
}
Claude Desktop #
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
}
}
}
Codex #
[mcp_servers.desktop-commander-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest"]
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