claude-multi
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Plugins & MCP

How do I manage MCP servers across instances?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers let Claude Code talk to external tools, databases, APIs, file systems, whatever you’ve wired up. Each instance can have its own set, and claude-multi gives you commands to manage them without digging through JSON files.

Listing what’s configured

Terminal window
claude-multi mcp list

Shows MCP server configs across all instances so you can see at a glance what’s connected where.

Copying between instances

Set up an MCP server in one instance and want it in another?

Terminal window
claude-multi mcp copy

From the TUI, select MCP servers and choose copy. You pick the source and destination instances.

Verifying configs

MCP server configs can go stale if a server binary gets moved or removed:

Terminal window
claude-multi mcp verify

This checks that referenced executables and paths still exist.

Setting up MCP during instance creation

When you create a new instance through the TUI, the Copy Options step lets you bring over MCP server configs from your primary ~/.claude install. That’s the fastest way to get a new instance connected to the same tools.

Where configs live

Each instance stores MCP server configuration in its own settings.json at ~/.claude-multi/<name>/settings.json. Same format as Claude Code’s native MCP config, no abstraction layer added.

More info