Desktop Commander
Advanced terminal and filesystem control for long-running processes.
Advanced terminal and filesystem control for long-running processes.
What it is
Desktop Commander gives Claude advanced terminal and filesystem control: kick off long-running processes and watch the output, surgical file edits via search-replace, deep filesystem search. Useful when Claude is your daily driver on your own machine.
Install / Setup
Option 1 — Terminal:
claude mcp add desktop-commander --scope user -- npx -y @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest
Option 2 — Prompt Claude Code:
Install Desktop Commander MCP (@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander) via claude mcp add with --scope user and verify it's running with /mcp.
Repo: github.com/wonderwhy-er/DesktopCommanderMCP
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Inside the community I show you how I run all of this day-to-day — live sessions, direct feedback on your setup, and my full configs.
Use cases
- Long-running processes — Dev servers, build scripts, docker-compose: Claude boots them, attaches, and reads the output live.
- Surgical file edits — Search-replace with context instead of rewriting whole files.
- Filesystem recon — "Find every file in this project older than 30 days that isn't in .gitignore."
- Process management — Port stuck? Claude finds the PID and kills it.
- Multi-terminal workflows — Claude juggles parallel terminal sessions for backend, frontend, and tests at once.
Pro tip
Desktop Commander has access to your entire system — lock down the allowed root directories in the config explicitly, otherwise Claude can wander outside your project and touch stuff it shouldn't.
🚀 Anyone can install MCPs. Knowing which combo actually moves the needle for your workflow — that's what saves you weeks. Inside the community I walk you through my full MCP setup. → Join the Claude Code Mastery Community
Updated regularly — follow @vine.codes for more.
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