---
title: "Connect Claude to mcpjungle"
description: "Connect Claude Desktop to your Mcpjungle gateway and give it access to all your MCP servers"
---

Claude Desktop does not support direct HTTP MCP connections, so you connect it to Mcpjungle through the `mcp-remote` bridge package. Once configured, Claude can discover and call every tool registered in your gateway from a single entry in its MCP servers config.

## Prerequisites

- Mcpjungle running at `http://localhost:8080` (or your deployment URL)
- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org) installed (required to run `npx`)
- Claude Desktop installed

## Configure Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop reads its MCP server configuration from a JSON file on disk.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Find the config file">
    Open the Claude Desktop configuration file for your operating system:

    <Tabs>
      <Tab title="macOS">
        ```
        ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
        ```
      </Tab>
      <Tab title="Windows">
        ```
        %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
        ```
      </Tab>
    </Tabs>

    If the file does not exist, create it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add Mcpjungle as an MCP server">
    Add the following to `claude_desktop_config.json`:

    ```json
    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "mcpjungle": {
          "command": "npx",
          "args": [
            "mcp-remote",
            "http://localhost:8080/mcp",
            "--allow-http"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
    ```

    <Note>
      The `--allow-http` flag is required because `mcp-remote` enforces HTTPS by default. You need this flag when connecting to a local Mcpjungle instance over plain HTTP.
    </Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Restart Claude Desktop">
    Quit and reopen Claude Desktop. It will launch the `mcp-remote` process on startup and establish a connection to Mcpjungle.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Test the connection">
    In a new conversation, ask Claude to list available tools:

    ```
    What MCP tools do you have access to?
    ```

    Claude will query Mcpjungle and return the full list of tools from all registered servers. You can then invoke any tool directly in the conversation.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Enterprise mode (authentication)

If your Mcpjungle instance runs in enterprise mode, you must create an MCP client and pass its access token in the `Authorization` header.

First, create a client with the Mcpjungle CLI:

```bash
mcpjungle create mcp-client claude-desktop --allow "server1, server2"
```

This will output an access token for your client which is allowed to call tools from `server1` and `server2`.

Pass the token to `mcp-remote` using the `--header` flag:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcpjungle": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://localhost:8080/mcp",
        "--allow-http",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```

Replace `YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN` with the token printed by `mcpjungle create mcp-client`.

<Warning>
  In enterprise mode, a client can only see and call tools from the servers it was explicitly granted access to. If Claude reports no tools available, verify that the `--allow` flag included the correct server names when you created the client.
</Warning>

## Limit tools with Tool Groups

As you register more MCP servers, the total number of tools visible to Claude can grow large. Too many tools can degrade Claude's response quality and increase latency.

Use [Tool Groups](/guides/tool-groups) to create a curated subset of tools and point Claude at the group-specific endpoint instead of the main gateway:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcpjungle": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://localhost:8080/v0/groups/claude-tools/mcp",
        "--allow-http"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```

<Tip>
  Run `mcpjungle list tools` to see all available tools, then cherry-pick the ones Claude actually needs when creating a group.
</Tip>
