Step 8: Connect to Claude Desktop

One-Line Summary: Build the server, configure Claude Desktop to launch it, and test every tool live.

Prerequisites: All previous steps completed

Build the Server

npx tsc

Verify the output exists:

ls dist/

You should see index.js, db.js, tools.js, resources.js, and prompts.js.

Configure Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop reads MCP server configurations from a JSON file. Open it:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add your server to the mcpServers object:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bookmarks": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp with the actual path to your project directory. Use the full absolute path — relative paths will not work.

To find your absolute path:

# In your project directory
pwd

Configure Claude Code (Alternative)

If you use Claude Code instead of Claude Desktop, add the server to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bookmarks": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or add it globally via the CLI:

claude mcp add bookmarks -- node /absolute/path/to/bookmark-mcp/dist/index.js

Restart and Verify

Claude Desktop: Quit and reopen the app. Click the MCP icon (plug icon) in the bottom-left corner. You should see "bookmarks" listed with 5 tools, 4 resources, and 2 prompts.

Claude Code: Start a new session. Your server will be available automatically.

Test Your Server

Try these prompts in Claude:

Save a bookmark:

Save this article: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs — tag it with "mcp" and "docs"

Save a few more:

Bookmark https://news.ycombinator.com — title "Hacker News", tags: "tech", "news"

Save https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00001 as "Attention Is All You Need" with tags "ai", "research", "transformers"

Search:

What bookmarks do I have about AI?

Browse by tag:

Show me everything tagged "research"

Use a prompt:

Run my weekly digest

Tag cleanup:

Analyze my tags and suggest improvements

Troubleshooting

Server doesn't appear in Claude Desktop:

• Check that claude_desktop_config.json is valid JSON (no trailing commas)
• Verify the absolute path is correct — try running node /your/path/dist/index.js directly to see if it errors
• Restart Claude Desktop completely (quit from the dock/taskbar, not just close the window)

"Module not found" error:

• Make sure you ran npx tsc to compile the TypeScript
• Check that dist/index.js exists

Database errors:

• The server creates bookmarks.db in the current working directory. Make sure the cwd in your config points to the project root.

What You Built

You now have a fully functional MCP server with:

Your bookmarks are stored locally in SQLite — no cloud services, no API keys, no subscriptions. The server runs as a subprocess of Claude and communicates over STDIO.

Next Steps

Some ideas to extend your server:

• Add a fetch_title tool that automatically extracts the page title from a URL using fetch
• Add full-text search with SQLite FTS5 for better search relevance
• Export to HTML — add a tool that generates a browsable HTML page from your bookmarks
• Import from browser — parse a Chrome/Firefox bookmarks export file
• Scheduled digests — combine with a cron job to email yourself weekly summaries

← Adding Prompts