OpenAI Chat MCP server

The MCP OpenAI Server enables seamless integration between Claude and OpenAI's models, allowing you to interact with various OpenAI models including gpt-4o and o1-preview directly within your Claude conversations.

Prerequisites

Before installing the MCP OpenAI Server, ensure you have:

• Node.js version 18 or higher (includes npm and npx)
• Claude Desktop app installed on your system
• An OpenAI API key

Installation

The setup process involves configuring Claude Desktop to recognize and use the MCP OpenAI Server.

Configuration Steps

1. Make sure the Claude Desktop app is installed
2. Obtain an OpenAI API key if you don't already have one
3. Locate your Claude Desktop configuration file:
   • On macOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
4. Add the following entry to your configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-openai": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@mzxrai/mcp-openai@latest"],
      "env": {
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here (get one from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)"
      }
    }
  }
}

Be sure to replace the placeholder text with your actual OpenAI API key.

Usage

Using OpenAI models through Claude is straightforward. Simply start a conversation with Claude and when you want to leverage an OpenAI model, just ask Claude to use it.

Example Prompts

You can refer to OpenAI models directly in your conversations:

Can you ask o1 what it thinks about this problem?

Or:

What does gpt-4o think about this?

Supported Models

The server currently supports these OpenAI models:

• gpt-4o (default)
• gpt-4o-mini
• o1-preview
• o1-mini

Available Tools

The server provides access to OpenAI's API through a tool interface:

openai_chat

• Sends messages to OpenAI's chat completion API
• Arguments:
  • messages: Array of messages (required)
  • model: Which model to use (optional, defaults to gpt-4o)

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues with the MCP OpenAI Server, you can check the Claude Desktop MCP logs:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

The server has been verified to work on macOS, with Linux support still in development.

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 "mcp-openai" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@mzxrai/mcp-openai@latest"],"env":{"OPENAI_API_KEY":"your-api-key-here (get one from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)"}}'

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": {
        "mcp-openai": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@mzxrai/mcp-openai@latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here (get one from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)"
            }
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "mcp-openai": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@mzxrai/mcp-openai@latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here (get one from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect