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Setup by Tool

Narnia's MCP server is a local, loopback-only Streamable HTTP endpoint (http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp) served by the same always-on process as the web UI — it is not a stdio process that your MCP client launches itself. No API key or authentication is required; it only reads from your local ~/.copilot/ files.

Start the server first

Every snippet below assumes Narnia is already running (see Getting Started). GitHub Copilot CLI's sessionStart hook keeps it running automatically once installed as a plugin; other clients don't know to start it for you, so start it yourself first — otherwise the client will show a connection error or zero tools.

GitHub Copilot CLI

Installing Narnia as a plugin (copilot plugin install ncosentino/narnia) ships a working .mcp.json in the plugin bundle — nothing to hand-edit:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "narnia": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp",
      "tools": ["*"]
    }
  }
}

The same plugin's sessionStart hook also relaunches the server at the start of every session if it isn't already up.

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace (or run MCP: Add Server from the Command Palette and choose HTTP):

{
  "servers": {
    "narnia": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project root (or a user-level ~/.cursor/mcp.json to make it available everywhere):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "narnia": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor infers the transport from the presence of url (no command or type needed) — this is its documented format for a remote-style server.

Visual Studio

Add to %USERPROFILE%\.mcp.json (available to every solution) or <SolutionDir>\.mcp.json (that solution only). Requires Visual Studio 2022 17.14+ or Visual Studio 2026:

{
  "servers": {
    "narnia": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop's own config file (claude_desktop_config.json) only launches stdio servers directly. Its URL-based "Custom Connectors" feature is a claude.ai (web) integration built for internet-hosted, authenticated servers — it doesn't apply to a loopback-only local server like Narnia's.

The practical workaround is mcp-remote, a small stdio-to-HTTP bridge process, referenced from claude_desktop_config.json (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\ on Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "narnia": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-remote", "http://127.0.0.1:5244/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

See Configuration for environment variable overrides to customize the database path and session state directory.