Tree Explorer MCP server for AI agents

The MCP Tree Explorer is a lightweight tool designed to visualize directory structures in Cursor through the implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It provides an easy way to explore file trees with smart filtering options that help you focus on relevant files while excluding common large directories.

Installation

You can install the MCP Tree Explorer using either pip or uv:

# Using pip
pip install mcp-tree-explorer

# Using uv
uv pip install mcp-tree-explorer

Configuring with Cursor

To use MCP Tree Explorer with Cursor, edit your Cursor configuration file and add the tool to the "tools" section:

{
  "tools": {
    "mcp-tree-explorer": {
      "command": "mcp-tree-explorer"
    }
  }
}

Using MCP Tree Explorer

Once installed and configured, you can use MCP Tree Explorer through Cursor by using natural language commands.

Basic Usage

Simply ask Cursor to show you the directory structure:

"Show me the directory structure of this project"

Available Parameters

The tool supports several parameters to customize how the directory tree is displayed:

directory: Specify which directory to examine (defaults to current directory)
depth: Set a maximum depth for the tree visualization
ignore: Add additional patterns to ignore (comma-separated)
keep: Specify patterns to keep even if they match auto-ignore patterns (comma-separated)

Usage Examples

You can use natural language to control these parameters when using the tool in Cursor:

"Run tree in the src directory but include node_modules"
"Show me a tree of the project, ignoring test files but keeping the dist folder"

Features

MCP Tree Explorer includes several helpful features:

Smart filtering to automatically exclude large directories like node_modules and .git
Customizable ignore and keep patterns to fine-tune your view
Automatic installation of the underlying tree command if it's not already available on your system
Cross-platform compatibility for Windows, macOS, and Linux

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-tree-explorer" '{"command":"mcp-tree-explorer"}'

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-tree-explorer": {
            "command": "mcp-tree-explorer"
        }
    }
}

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-tree-explorer": {
            "command": "mcp-tree-explorer"
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect