SimpleMCP

Skeleton of an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server built with .NET, intended as a starting point for building custom tools that Claude Desktop can call locally.

Publishing as a self-contained executable

Run the following command from the repo root to produce a single binary with no external dependencies.

Windows:

dotnet publish SimpleMCP.Server/SimpleMCP.Server.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o C:\LocalMCPServer

The output folder (C:\LocalMCPServer) will contain SimpleMCP.Server.exe.

macOS (Intel):

dotnet publish SimpleMCP.Server/SimpleMCP.Server.csproj -c Release -r osx-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o ~/LocalMCPServer

macOS (Apple Silicon):

dotnet publish SimpleMCP.Server/SimpleMCP.Server.csproj -c Release -r osx-arm64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o ~/LocalMCPServer

The output folder (~/LocalMCPServer) will contain SimpleMCP.Server.

Configuring Claude Desktop

1. Open Claude Desktop.
2. Go to Settings → Developer.
3. Click Edit Config to open claude_desktop_config.json.
4. Add your server under mcpServers:

Windows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "localMCP": {
      "command": "C:\\LocalMCPServer\\SimpleMCP.Server.exe"
    }
  }
}

macOS:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "localMCP": {
      "command": "/Users/your-username/LocalMCPServer/SimpleMCP.Server"
    }
  }
}

5. Save the file and restart Claude Desktop. The server will appear under the MCP tools icon in the chat input bar.