MCP Manager for VS Code
A VS Code extension that gives you a sidebar for managing Claude Code MCP server configurations. View, enable/disable, and health-check all your MCP servers from one place.
Features
- Unified sidebar view — See all MCP servers across project, global, local, managed, and plugin scopes in a single tree
- One-click toggle — Enable or disable servers with checkboxes; changes are written to the correct config file automatically
- Two-tier health checks — Lightweight auto-checks on refresh (binary lookup, HTTP HEAD) plus deep manual checks (full MCP SDK handshake with ping and tool listing)
- Plugin discovery — Automatically detects MCP servers provided by installed Claude Code plugins
- Claude Code settings — Configure
ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH and other environment variables directly from the sidebar
- Edit config in-place — Right-click any server to open its source config file in the editor
TreeView
MCP Manager (activity bar icon)
├── Project MCPs servers from .mcp.json
├── Global MCPs servers from ~/.claude.json (mcpServers)
├── Local MCPs per-project servers from ~/.claude.json
├── Managed MCPs enterprise/platform configs (read-only)
└── Settings
├── Auto Health Check
├── Health Check Timeout
└── Tool Search Mode
Each server shows a checkbox for toggle, a health icon, and a rich tooltip with connection details.
Health Checks
| Tier |
Trigger |
What it does |
| Tier 1 (auto) |
Tree refresh |
which lookup for stdio commands; HTTP HEAD for SSE endpoints |
| Tier 2 (manual) |
Context menu or toolbar button |
Full MCP Client handshake — connect, ping, list tools |
Results are cached for 5 minutes. Health statuses include: Healthy, Degraded, BinaryFound, Reachable, Unreachable, CommandNotFound, AuthFailed, and Error.
Toggle Strategies
The extension writes to the correct config file depending on server scope:
| Scope |
Strategy |
Config file |
| Global / Local |
Key-move between mcpServers and _disabled_mcpServers |
~/.claude.json |
| Project |
Add/remove from disabledMcpjsonServers array |
.claude/settings.local.json |
| Plugin |
Set enabledPlugins[pluginId] boolean |
~/.claude/settings.json |
Managed servers are read-only and cannot be toggled.
Commands
All commands are available from the Command Palette under the MCP Manager category:
| Command |
Description |
| Refresh MCP Servers |
Reload config files and run Tier 1 checks |
| Enable / Disable Server |
Toggle a server on or off |
| Edit Config File |
Open the server's source config in the editor |
| Check Health |
Run a Tier 2 deep check on a single server |
| Check All Health |
Run Tier 2 checks on all enabled servers |
| Edit Setting |
Change an extension setting |
| Edit Claude Code Setting |
Change a Claude Code environment setting |
Settings
Extension settings (stored in ~/.claude/mcp-manager-settings.json):
| Setting |
Values |
Default |
Description |
| Auto Health Check |
none, httpOnly, all |
all |
Which Tier 1 checks run automatically |
| Health Check Timeout |
1000–120000 ms |
15000 |
Timeout for Tier 2 checks |
Claude Code settings (stored in ~/.claude/settings.json → env):
| Setting |
Values |
Default |
Description |
| Tool Search Mode |
auto, true, false |
auto |
Maps to ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH env var |
Requirements
Development
npm install
npm run compile # Build with esbuild
npm run watch # Build + watch
npm test # Run tests (vitest)
npm run lint # ESLint
License
MIT
