Remote

You can run a remote MCP server that exposes a standard MCP API locally or on Cloudflare, then connect MCP clients like the MCP Inspector or Claude Desktop to it. This setup lets you run tools and expose them through an MCP endpoint for experimentation, testing, and integration with end-user clients.

How to use

You will connect your MCP client to either a locally running MCP server or a deployed remote server. The local server runs on port 8787 and provides an SSE endpoint at /sse. You can use the MCP Inspector to browse and call available tools. You can also connect Claude Desktop to this server by configuring a local proxy through the provided mcp-remote workflow, or connect remotely to a deployed Cloudflare worker endpoint.

How to install

Prerequisites you need before starting: Node.js and a package manager (npm or pnpm). You will also use the MCP Inspector and optional Claude Desktop integration tools.

Step 1: Clone the project repository locally.

# clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/cloudflare/ai.git
# Or if using ssh:
# git clone git@github.com:cloudflare/ai.git

Step 2: Install dependencies using pnpm (preferred) and run the local server in development mode.

cd ai
pnpm install
npx nx dev remote-mcp-server

Step 3: Open the local server in your browser.

http://localhost:8787/

Additional sections

Deploy to Cloudflare is supported. You create an OAuth KV namespace, add the namespace ID to your wrangler configuration, and then deploy.

To connect Claude Desktop to your local MCP server you configure a local proxy with the mcp-remote workflow, then point Claude at http://localhost:8787/sse.

You can also run a local proxy configuration inside Claude by editing the config to point to the local SSE URL.

Debugging tips: if something goes wrong, restart Claude or connect directly to your MCP server with the CLI tool. For a direct test, you can run the following to reach the local server.

npx mcp-remote http://localhost:8787/sse

Available tools

MCP Inspector

A tool to explore the MCP API, switch Transport Type to SSE, connect to the MCP server, perform login, and list/call defined tools.

mcp-remote

CLI proxy used to connect to an MCP server from local or remote clients; run commands like npx mcp-remote http://localhost:8787/sse to test connectivity.

wrangler

Cloudflare CLI used to create KV namespaces and deploy the MCP server to Cloudflare Workers; used when deploying OAuth-related data and publishing the server.