The Emacs MCP Server is a powerful tool that enables generating and executing Elisp code in a running Emacs process through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It bridges AI models like Claude with your Emacs environment, allowing AI assistants to help automate tasks directly in your editor.
The server provides two main tools:
uv
package manager for Pythongit clone https://github.com/username/emacs-mcp-server.git
cd emacs-mcp-server
uv
:uv sync
source .venv/bin/activate
To test the server in the MCP inspector:
mcp dev emacs_mcp_server.py
mcp install emacs_mcp_server.py
claude_desktop_config.json
file to include your API keys and the full path to emacsclient
:"Emacs-MCP-Server": {
"command": "/path/to/your/.local/bin/uv",
"args": [
"run",
"--with",
"mcp[cli]",
"--with",
"smartfunc",
"mcp",
"run",
"/path/to/your/repos/emacs-mcp-server/emacs_mcp_server.py"
],
"env": {
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-xxxx",
"EMACSCLIENT": "/your/path/to/emacsclient"
}
}
Once configured:
Start your Emacs server if not already running:
(server-start)
Launch Claude Desktop
You can now ask Claude to:
You might ask Claude:
Claude will generate the appropriate Elisp code and can execute it directly in your Emacs session with your permission.
To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:
claude mcp add-json "Emacs-MCP-Server" '{"command":"uv","args":["run","--with","mcp[cli]","--with","smartfunc","mcp","run","emacs_mcp_server.py"],"env":{"OPENAI_API_KEY":"sk-xxxx","EMACSCLIENT":"/your/path/to/emacsclient"}}'
See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.
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.
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": {
"Emacs-MCP-Server": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"run",
"--with",
"mcp[cli]",
"--with",
"smartfunc",
"mcp",
"run",
"emacs_mcp_server.py"
],
"env": {
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-xxxx",
"EMACSCLIENT": "/your/path/to/emacsclient"
}
}
}
}
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.
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.
To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:
1. Find your configuration file:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
2. Add this to your configuration file:
{
"mcpServers": {
"Emacs-MCP-Server": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"run",
"--with",
"mcp[cli]",
"--with",
"smartfunc",
"mcp",
"run",
"emacs_mcp_server.py"
],
"env": {
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-xxxx",
"EMACSCLIENT": "/your/path/to/emacsclient"
}
}
}
}
3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect