Add MCP Servers to Give Claude Superpowers

Out of the box, Claude Code can read files and run commands. MCP servers extend it with entirely new capabilities — databases, APIs, browser automation, and more.

// .claude/settings.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "postgres": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres"],
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://localhost:5432/mydb"
      }
    }
  }
}

With that configured, Claude can now query your database directly during conversations — no copy-pasting SQL results back and forth.

Some popular MCP servers worth setting up:

• Postgres/MySQL — query databases, inspect schemas, run migrations
• GitHub — create PRs, review issues, manage repos without leaving the terminal
• Brave Search — let Claude search the web for documentation and examples
• Filesystem — give Claude controlled access to directories outside the project

You can configure them globally (~/.claude/settings.json) or per-project (.claude/settings.json). Per-project is usually better since different codebases need different tools.

# Check which MCP servers are active
claude /mcp

MCP servers are inherited by subagents too, so any parallel workers you spin up get the same capabilities.

MCP servers turn Claude from a code assistant into a fully connected development environment.