MCP Servers: Connecting Your Tools

What MCP Is

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol — an open standard that lets AI tools connect to external systems. Before MCP, an AI editor could only work with what was in your local files. With MCP, Cursor can read your GitHub PRs, write to Notion, query your database, and control a browser — all from inside the same editor and the same Agent session.

MCP servers are small programs that implement the protocol. Each server exposes a set of tools the AI can call. When you connect a GitHub MCP server to Cursor, Agent gains the ability to list open PRs, create issues, read review comments, and open PRs — without you switching to a browser.

Setting Up MCP in Cursor 1.0

Cursor 1.0 made MCP server setup a one-click process with built-in OAuth support. To add a server:

1. Open Cursor Settings (Cmd+,)
2. Navigate to the MCP section
3. Browse Cursor's curated list of approved servers
4. Click the server you want and click Install
5. If the server requires authentication (GitHub, Figma, Notion), an OAuth flow opens in your browser — authorise it once
6. The server is now available to Chat and Agent

Key MCP Servers Available in Cursor

• GitHub — Read and create issues, list open PRs, read PR review comments, fetch file contents from any branch. The most immediately useful MCP server for most developers. Example: "Agent, fix the failing tests mentioned in PR #42" — Agent reads the PR, reads the test failures, finds the relevant code, and proposes a fix.
• Figma — Read design files, inspect components and their properties, read design tokens. Agent can implement a design directly from the Figma file without you manually translating measurements and colours.
• Notion — Read and write Notion pages and databases. Useful for pulling in product specs or technical requirements stored in Notion as context for an Agent task.
• Playwright — Control a browser for automated testing. Agent can write an end-to-end test and immediately run it in a controlled browser to verify it works.
• Stripe — Read invoices, subscriptions, and payment data. Useful for debugging payment-related code with real data structure as context.

Using MCP Tools in Chat and Agent

Once a server is connected, its tools are available automatically. In Chat, you can explicitly call a tool by describing what you need ("look at my open GitHub issues and find ones tagged bug"). In Agent tasks, Cursor calls MCP tools automatically when they're relevant to completing the task.

Custom MCP Servers

Any server implementing the MCP spec can be added to Cursor manually via a JSON configuration in Settings. This means you can connect Cursor to your internal tools: your company's internal API, your deployment system, your monitoring platform, or any other system that you or your team can build an MCP wrapper for.