Useful MCPs for Builders

Once you understand how to install an MCP you can add any capability to Claude Code these are the most practical ones for non-developers

1. Fetch (Covered in Previous Lesson)

What it does: visits any public URL and reads the content.

Best for: competitor research, reading documentation, and pulling content from any website.

Cost: free with no API key needed.

1. Brave Search

What it does: runs real search queries and gets results from the live web.

Best for: finding current information, research, keyword discovery, and trend monitoring.

Cost: free tier with 2,000 searches per month. Requires a free API key from brave.com/search/api.

"brave-search": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],

"env": { "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
}

1. GitHub MCP

What it does: reads and writes to GitHub repositories including reading code, creating files, pushing changes, and reading issues and pull requests.

Best for: anyone who has deployed code to GitHub via Netlify or GitHub Pages. Claude can push updates without you opening a browser.

Cost: free. Requires a GitHub personal access token which is free to generate in your GitHub account settings.

"github": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],

"env": { "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "YOUR_TOKEN" }
}

To get your GitHub token go to github.com then Settings then Developer Settings then Personal Access Tokens then Generate new token. Select the repo permissions.

1. Filesystem MCP

What it does: gives Claude access to files outside your current project folder.

Best for: when you need Claude to read from one folder and write to another or work across multiple projects at once.

Cost: free. Built by Anthropic.

"filesystem": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME"]

}

Replace /Users/YOUR_USERNAME with your actual home directory path.

1. Puppeteer MCP

What it does: controls a real Chrome browser including clicking buttons, filling forms, taking screenshots, and navigating pages.

Best for: testing your own websites automatically, scraping pages that require JavaScript to load which covers most modern sites, and taking screenshots of deployed pages.

Cost: free. Requires Chrome installed which you likely already have.

"puppeteer": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-puppeteer"]

}

1. Memory MCP

What it does: gives Claude a persistent knowledge store it can read and write to across sessions.

Best for: projects where Claude needs to remember facts, decisions, and context between sessions beyond what CLAUDE.md covers.

Cost: free.

"memory": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]

}

How to Install Any of These

In the Claude Code Desktop App MCP settings your configuration block looks like this and you can have multiple MCPs at once:

{
"mcpServers": {
"fetch": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-fetch"]

},
"brave-search": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],

"env": { "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
},
"github": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],

"env": { "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "YOUR_TOKEN" }
}
}
}

Each MCP is a block inside mcpServers. Add as many as you need.

If You Need Help Installing

If you get stuck on any of these ask Claude directly:

I want to install the [MCP NAME] MCP in Claude Code Desktop App.

Walk me through the exact steps for my operating system ([Mac/Windows/Linux]).

I am not a developer — give me clear, numbered steps.

Claude knows its own MCP ecosystem and can walk you through setup in plain English.

Recommended Starting Stack

For most community members start with these three and add more as you need them.

Fetch is free, requires no key, and you can use it immediately. Brave Search needs one free account and unlocks real-time research. GitHub is ready once you have GitHub set up from deploying your sites.

Your Action Right Now

Look at your current projects and think about what external information or tool you wish Claude could access on its own.

Pick the MCP from this lesson that would solve that. Install it using the configuration block above.