Desktop Commander MCP
MCP server giving Claude terminal control, filesystem search, and code editing on the local machine. 6,007 GitHub stars and 14 commits on main in the last 30 days.
“MCP server giving Claude terminal control, filesystem search, and code editing on the local machine. 6,007 stars and 14 commits on main in the last 30 days.”
INSTALL THIS SERVER
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander"
],
"env": {
"DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS": "/Users/me/projects"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander"
],
"env": {
"DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS": "/Users/me/projects"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander"
],
"env": {
"DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS": "/Users/me/projects"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander"
],
"env": {
"DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS": "/Users/me/projects"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"desktop-commander": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander"
],
"env": {
"DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS": "/Users/me/projects"
}
}
}
}
7 TOOLS AVAILABLE
OUR ASSESSMENT
- 6,007 GitHub stars.
- 14 commits on main in the last 30 days.
- MIT license.
- Combined terminal + filesystem + code-edit surface in one MCP.
- execute_command supports any shell on the host.
- execute_command is full shell access; review the agent prompt path before mounting in production.
- Without DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS, the server can read or write any path the host process can access.
- Community-maintained.
execute_command is unrestricted shell access. Treat the agent flow as having full local-user privileges. Set DESKTOP_COMMANDER_ALLOWED_PATHS to bound filesystem access. For production agent flows, run inside a sandbox or container with minimum privileges.
Local agent development where the agent needs terminal access; refactoring flows that benefit from grep + edit + run; on-machine debugging where the agent inspects running processes.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
ADOPTION METRICS
// Reading this6,007 stars on wonderwhy-er/DesktopCommanderMCP. 14 commits on main in the last 30 days.
// Reading thisPairs with filesystem (Anthropic reference), conduit-mcp, fast-filesystem-mcp, kreuzberg-mcp, google-drive-mcp. Desktop Commander adds shell+grep surface.
SOURCES & VERIFICATION
We don't take any single directory's word for it. Before scoring, we cross-reference 4 public MCP sources, install the server ourselves against the clients we cover, and record when we last re-verified.
The same server, 4 different lenses. We reconcile these signals into our editorial score, which is why our number sometimes diverges from a directory-aggregate star count.
| Source | Their rating | Their star count | Their downloads | Last synced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutomationSwitch This page | 4.5editorial | 6,007 | — | MAY 7, 2026 |
| PulseMCP | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 7, 2026 |
| MCP.so | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 7, 2026 |
| Glama | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 7, 2026 |
| Smithery | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 7, 2026 |
// Counts are directory-reported; we don't adjust them. Discrepancies usually come from different snapshot times or star-caching.
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DISCUSS YOUR
MCP REQUIREMENTS.
Evaluating a server, scoping an internal deployment, or working out whether MCP is the right fit at all. Start the conversation and we will point you at the right piece of the ecosystem.