MCP clients

CoreMCP speaks Model Context Protocol over stdio and http transports. Any MCP-aware client works — below are the config snippets for the four most common.

Prerequisites

CoreMCP installed locally — see Install
A valid coremcp.yaml with at least one source — see Connect a data source
The binary discoverable at /usr/local/bin/coremcp (default install path) or specify the full path in your client config

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "corebase": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/coremcp",
      "args": ["serve", "--config", "/etc/coremcp/coremcp.yaml"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The tools surface under the hammer icon — you’ll see list_tables, describe_table, and any custom tools defined in your YAML.

Use absolute paths in the config. Claude Desktop spawns the binary in a minimal environment without your shell PATH.

Cursor

Cursor reads MCP servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) or .cursor/mcp.json in the workspace root (project-scoped):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "corebase": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/coremcp",
      "args": ["serve", "--config", "/etc/coremcp/coremcp.yaml"]
    }
  }
}

Reload Cursor — the agent shows up in the Composer’s tool list.

Continue

For Continue, add CoreMCP under mcpServers in ~/.continue/config.yaml:

mcpServers:
  - name: corebase
    command: /usr/local/bin/coremcp
    args:
      - serve
      - --config
      - /etc/coremcp/coremcp.yaml

Reload the Continue extension in your editor.

Zed

Zed’s MCP support uses the same JSON shape:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "corebase": {
      "command": {
        "path": "/usr/local/bin/coremcp",
        "args": ["serve", "--config", "/etc/coremcp/coremcp.yaml"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Add this to your Zed settings (Cmd+,).

HTTP transport (remote clients)

For clients that connect over the network — including CoreBase Cloud — run CoreMCP with transport: http in coremcp.yaml and listen on a port:

server:
  transport: http
  port: 8080

Start with coremcp serve (as a long-running service via systemd or Docker Compose). Point your remote client at http://your-host:8080.

Expose HTTP transport only inside trusted networks. There’s no built-in TLS or auth — terminate TLS at a reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, Cloudflare Tunnel) and add network-level ACLs.

Verifying

Once your client picks up CoreMCP, the available tools should include:

Tool	Purpose
`list_tables`	List tables for a given source
`describe_table`	Column types, FK relationships, comments
`execute_query`	Run a read-only SQL query
`execute_procedure`	Call a stored procedure (only if `readonly: false`)
Custom tools	Anything declared under `tools:` in your YAML

Ask your client something like: “List the tables in the erp_prod source.” If the agent is wired correctly, the tool call returns the table list.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Client doesn’t see the server	Wrong path to binary, or the config file isn’t being loaded — check client logs
Tools appear but every call times out	`coremcp.yaml` DSN unreachable; check with `psql` / `sqlcmd` from the same host
”tool not found: execute_procedure”	Source has `readonly: true` (default). Set `readonly: false` if you need stored procs
Stdio agent dies immediately on launch	Missing config file at the path supplied; check `args` are absolute

Get started

Reference

Prerequisites

Claude Desktop

Cursor

Continue

Zed

HTTP transport (remote clients)

Verifying

Troubleshooting

​Prerequisites

​Claude Desktop

​Cursor

​Continue

​Zed

​HTTP transport (remote clients)

​Verifying

​Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

Claude Desktop

Cursor

Continue

Zed

HTTP transport (remote clients)

Verifying

Troubleshooting