AWS Service Reference MCP server

The AWS Service Reference MCP Server provides tools to interact with the AWS Programmatic Service Reference. It allows you to list AWS services, retrieve API actions for specific services, get condition keys and resource types supported by API actions, and obtain action properties such as write or list capabilities.

Installation

To install the AWS Service Reference MCP Server:

1. Ensure you have Python 3.10 or higher installed
2. Clone the repository
3. Install the required dependencies:

# Create and activate a virtual environment (recommended)
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Unix/macOS
.venv\Scripts\activate     # On Windows

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the Server

You can run the server directly:

python aws_service_reference.py

Integrating with Claude Desktop

1. Open your Claude Desktop configuration file:

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

2. Add the server configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "aws-service-reference": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": ["/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/aws_service_reference.py"]
        }
    }
}

Replace /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/ with the actual path to where you saved the server file.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Available Tools

The server provides five tools:

1. list_aws_services: Lists all available AWS services
2. get_service_actions: Gets API actions for a specific AWS service
3. get_action_condition_keys: Gets condition keys supported by a specific API action
4. get_action_resource_types: Gets resource types supported by a specific API action
5. get_action_properties: Gets action properties for a specific API action

Using with Claude

After connecting the server, you can ask Claude questions like:

• "What AWS services are available?"
• "Show me all the API actions for the S3 service"
• "What condition keys are supported by the s3:PutObject action?"
• "What resource types can I use with the ec2:RunInstances action?"
• "What are the action properties of s3:PutObject?"

Understanding Action Properties

The get_action_properties tool provides information about what an action is capable of:

# Example response for get_action_properties with s3:PutObject
Action properties for s3:PutObject:
IsList: False
IsPermissionManagement: False
IsTaggingOnly: False
IsWrite: True

This information helps you:

• Identify write operations that modify resources
• Find permission management actions that should be carefully controlled
• Distinguish between read-only and write operations
• Identify actions that only modify tags

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues:

1. Verify your Python version is 3.10 or higher
2. Ensure all dependencies are installed correctly:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Check the Claude Desktop logs:
   • macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp*.log
4. Make sure you're using absolute paths in the Claude Desktop configuration

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 "aws-service-reference" '{"command":"python","args":["/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/aws_service_reference.py"]}'

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": {
        "aws-service-reference": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/aws_service_reference.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "aws-service-reference": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/aws_service_reference.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect