iTerm MCP server

iTerm MCP is a Model Context Protocol server that gives AI assistants like Claude access to your iTerm terminal session. This allows AI models to view terminal output, execute commands, and interact with your terminal environment while maintaining efficient token usage by only inspecting relevant output.

Requirements

• iTerm2 must be running
• Node.js version 18 or greater

Installation

You can install and configure the iTerm MCP server to work with Claude Desktop by following these steps:

Setup with Claude Desktop

Add the server configuration to your Claude Desktop config file:

On macOS:

nano ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

On Windows:

notepad %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "iterm-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "iterm-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Installing via Smithery

For an automated installation with Claude Desktop, you can use Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install iterm-mcp --client claude

Usage

Once installed, Claude can interact with your iTerm session using the following tools:

Available Tools

write_to_terminal

This tool writes commands to your active iTerm terminal. It returns the number of lines of output produced by the command.

Example usage:

# Claude can use this to execute commands in your terminal:
write_to_terminal ls -la

read_terminal_output

This tool reads a specified number of lines from the active iTerm terminal.

Example usage:

# Claude can use this to read the last 10 lines of terminal output:
read_terminal_output 10

send_control_character

This tool sends control characters to the active iTerm terminal, enabling interaction with running processes.

Example usage:

# Claude can use this to send Ctrl+C to interrupt a process:
send_control_character c

Safety Considerations

When using iTerm MCP with AI assistants, keep these safety points in mind:

• You are responsible for using the tool safely
• There are no built-in restrictions on what commands can be executed
• Models may behave unexpectedly, so monitor activity and abort when needed
• Start with smaller tasks until you're familiar with how the model behaves
• Be ready to interrupt the model if it goes off track during multi-step tasks

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 "iterm-mcp" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","iterm-mcp"]}'

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": {
        "iterm-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "iterm-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "iterm-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "iterm-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect