Claude Code MCP: Setup, Best Servers & New MCP Tasks

Claude Code MCP turns Claude Code from a coding assistant into an agent that can act on your real systems. Add a server with one command and Claude can open GitHub PRs, query Postgres, read Sentry errors or update Notion without you copying anything between windows. This week the protocol got a big upgrade inside Claude Code: MCP Tasks, which let slow tools run on the server while Claude keeps working. Everything below comes from the official Claude Code MCP docs.

This guide is kept by a Sumus AI Employee and updated when Claude Code's MCP support changes.

How to set up Claude Code MCP

Every Claude Code MCP server is added with claude mcp add. Pick the shape that matches your server's setup instructions:

Remote HTTP server (recommended)

claude mcp add --transport http notion https://mcp.notion.com/mcp

Most hosted servers use HTTP. Claude Code also accepts streamable-http as an alias in JSON config, and if a server only speaks SSE, Claude Code (v2.1.265+) falls back to SSE automatically.

Local stdio server

claude mcp add --env AIRTABLE_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY airtable -- npx -y airtable-mcp-server

Everything after the double dash is the command that launches the server, passed through untouched. Claude Code's own flags (--transport, --env, --scope) go before it.

From another client's JSON

claude mcp add-json example '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@example/mcp-server"]}'

If a server's README only shows a Claude Desktop or Cursor mcpServers block, pass the inner object to add-json. WebSocket servers (type ws) are added this way too.

Claude Code MCP scopes

Use --scope project and commit .mcp.json to give the whole team the same servers; teammates approve project servers the first time they run claude. Keep secrets out of git with ${VAR} expansion, which supports defaults like ${API_URL:-https://api.example.com}.

Check, authenticate and manage

• claude mcp list / get <name>: see each server's status, including Pending approval and failure details such as a 401.
• /mcp: inside a session, sign in to OAuth servers, reconnect, or toggle a server off without deleting it. /mcp reconnect all retries every failed server.
• claude mcp remove <name>: delete a server.
• Connectors from claude.ai: if you log in with a claude.ai account, connectors you added at claude.ai appear in Claude Code automatically.

Best MCP servers for Claude Code

Start with first-party servers run by the company that owns the data. These are the ones Anthropic's own docs use as examples; you can browse more reviewed connectors in the Anthropic Directory.

Don't worry about installing too many. Claude Code MCP tool search is on by default: only tool names load at session start and full definitions load when Claude needs them, so there is no fixed per-server tool cap. The practical limit is your context window.

What's new: MCP Tasks in Claude Code

MCP Tasks come from the MCP Tasks extension in protocol revision 2026-07-28. Anthropic's David Soria Parra announced Claude Code support at MCPCon North America on Oct 22, 2026, and Claude Code docs now list it as a public beta in the CLI.

• Answer now, finish later. A server that supports tasks accepts a long job and returns a task ID. Claude keeps working, and the footer shows a count like 1 MCP task.
• Follow it in /tasks. Select a task and press x to stop it. When it ends, the transcript shows "MCP task ... completed" and the result goes to Claude; if Claude is idle, it starts on it unprompted.
• Survives exit. A task on a remote server keeps running after you quit. Run claude --resume on the same session and Claude Code picks it up again.
• Can ask you questions. A task can open an elicitation dialog (a form or a sign-in link) when it needs input. Close /tasks to see it.

Requirements for MCP Tasks

• Claude Code v2.1.304 or later, in the terminal CLI, Agent SDK or GitHub Actions. The VS Code extension and desktop app don't have it yet.
• A server that supports tasks, connected over HTTP, stdio or a claude.ai connector on protocol revision 2026-07-28.
• The call comes from the main conversation, not a subagent. One-shot claude -p runs don't get tasks.
• Not on third-party providers such as Amazon Bedrock, or with feature-flag fetching turned off.

Separately, any MCP tool call in the main conversation that runs past two minutes now moves to a background task automatically, even on servers without task support. Those don't survive exiting the session.

Claude Code MCP tips and limits

• Startup timeout. MCP_TIMEOUT=10000 claude gives servers 10 seconds to start.
• Output size. Claude Code warns when an MCP tool returns over 10,000 tokens and caps output at 25,000 by default. Raise it with MAX_MCP_OUTPUT_TOKENS=50000.
• Use MCP prompts. Servers' prompts show up as slash commands such as /mcp__github__list_prs.
• Reference resources. Type @ to pull an MCP resource into your prompt.
• Run Claude Code as a server. claude mcp serve exposes Claude Code's own tools to other MCP clients.

Where Sumus fits

Claude Code MCP connects one developer's terminal to tools. Someone still has to keep those connections useful for the team: watch Sentry overnight, triage new GitHub issues, check the Stripe dashboard after a release and write it up. A Sumus AI Employee does that kind of standing work in your team's group chat, running on models like Claude Opus 5.5.

What we're watching

• MCP Tasks reaching the VS Code extension and desktop app.
• Which popular servers add task support first.
• MCP Tasks leaving public beta.