Jupyter Notebook MCP server for AI agents

Jupyter MCP Server enables real-time interaction with Jupyter Notebooks, allowing AI to edit, document, and execute code. It's compatible with any Jupyter deployment and works with various MCP clients like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf.

Key Features

⚡ Real-time control: Instantly view notebook changes as they happen
🔁 Smart execution: Automatically adjusts when a cell run fails thanks to cell output feedback
🤝 MCP-Compatible: Works with any MCP client, such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and more

Installation

Set Up Your Environment

First, install the required packages:

pip install jupyterlab==4.4.1 jupyter-collaboration==4.0.2 ipykernel
pip uninstall -y pycrdt datalayer_pycrdt
pip install datalayer_pycrdt==0.12.17

Start JupyterLab

Launch JupyterLab with:

jupyter lab --port 8888 --IdentityProvider.token MY_TOKEN --ip 0.0.0.0

Configuration

Configure Your MCP Client

You'll need to configure your MCP client based on your operating system.

For MacOS and Windows

Create a configuration with the following settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jupyter": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_URL",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_TOKEN",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_ID",
        "-e",
        "RUNTIME_URL",
        "-e",
        "RUNTIME_TOKEN",
        "datalayer/jupyter-mcp-server:latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "DOCUMENT_URL": "http://host.docker.internal:8888",
        "DOCUMENT_TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN",
        "DOCUMENT_ID": "notebook.ipynb",
        "RUNTIME_URL": "http://host.docker.internal:8888",
        "RUNTIME_TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Linux

The Linux configuration is slightly different:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jupyter": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_URL",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_TOKEN",
        "-e",
        "DOCUMENT_ID",
        "-e",
        "RUNTIME_URL",
        "-e",
        "RUNTIME_TOKEN",
        "--network=host",
        "datalayer/jupyter-mcp-server:latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "DOCUMENT_URL": "http://localhost:8888",
        "DOCUMENT_TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN",
        "DOCUMENT_ID": "notebook.ipynb",
        "RUNTIME_URL": "http://localhost:8888",
        "RUNTIME_TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important Configuration Notes

When configuring your MCP client, remember:

The port in DOCUMENT_URL and RUNTIME_URL must match the port used in your JupyterLab command
The DOCUMENT_ID is the path to your notebook, relative to where JupyterLab was started
In a basic setup, DOCUMENT_URL and RUNTIME_URL are the same
DOCUMENT_TOKEN and RUNTIME_TOKEN are typically the same as your Jupyter Token

Additional Resources

For more comprehensive setup instructions including Streamable HTTP transport and advanced configuration options, check out the full documentation at jupyter-mcp-server.datalayer.tech.

For instructions on configuring various MCP clients including Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cursor, Cline, and Windsurf, see the Clients documentation at jupyter-mcp-server.datalayer.tech/clients.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "jupyter" '{"command":"docker","args":["run","-i","--rm","-e","SERVER_URL","-e","TOKEN","-e","NOTEBOOK_PATH","datalayer/jupyter-mcp-server:latest"],"env":{"SERVER_URL":"http://host.docker.internal:8888","TOKEN":"MY_TOKEN","NOTEBOOK_PATH":"notebook.ipynb"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "jupyter": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "SERVER_URL",
                "-e",
                "TOKEN",
                "-e",
                "NOTEBOOK_PATH",
                "datalayer/jupyter-mcp-server:latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "SERVER_URL": "http://host.docker.internal:8888",
                "TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN",
                "NOTEBOOK_PATH": "notebook.ipynb"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

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

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "jupyter": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "SERVER_URL",
                "-e",
                "TOKEN",
                "-e",
                "NOTEBOOK_PATH",
                "datalayer/jupyter-mcp-server:latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "SERVER_URL": "http://host.docker.internal:8888",
                "TOKEN": "MY_TOKEN",
                "NOTEBOOK_PATH": "notebook.ipynb"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect