Setting up your first MCP server in Claude Code (the part nobody explains)

Setting up your first MCP server in Claude Code (the part nobody explains) MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets Claude Code talk to external tools and services. The documentation covers the protocol. This covers what actually breaks when you first set it up. The thing that trips everyone up: stdio vs SSE Claude Code supports two transport types for MCP servers: stdio : Claude spawns the server as a subprocess and communicates via stdin/stdout sse : Server runs independently, Claude connects over HTTP For local tools (file system operations, shell commands, database queries), use stdio . It's simpler — no port to manage, no server to keep running. For remote tools or services that multiple clients share, use sse . Most first-time MCP users start with stdio and don't realize they need to specify this explicitly. Minimal stdio server (Node.js) import { Server } from ' @modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/index.js ' ; import { StdioServerTransport } from ' @modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/stdio.j