Connecting MCP Clients

Once your MCP server is running (locally or on nanoHUB), you can connect it to several AI services. All clients use the nanoHUB API endpoint — no direct access to the weber proxy is needed.

Base URL for all examples:

https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/{tool}/mcp

Replace {tool} with your tool name (e.g. mcpdemo) and {token} with your nanoHUB Bearer token.

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

1. Open the Command Palette: Cmd+Shift+P (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux)

2. Run “MCP: Open Workspace Folder MCP Configuration”

3. This opens {workspace}/.vscode/mcp.json. Add your server:

{
  "servers": {
    "nanohub-mcpdemo": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/mcpdemo/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:NANOHUB_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

4. Set the NANOHUB_TOKEN environment variable, or replace ${env:NANOHUB_TOKEN} with your token directly.

5. Open the Copilot chat panel and select Agent mode — your tool’s functions will appear in the tool list.

Antigravity

1. Click the “…” menu in the Antigravity interface

2. Select MCP Servers

3. Click Manage MCP Servers

4. Click View raw config

5. Add your server entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nanohub-mcpdemo": {
      "serverUrl": "https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/mcpdemo/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer {token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      }
    }
  }
}

Antigravity sends a GET /mcp with Accept: text/event-stream to discover the endpoint, then POSTs all JSON-RPC messages.

OpenAI Codex

1. Click the gear icon to open Settings

2. Go to MCP Settings

3. Click Open MCP Settings

4. Click Add Server

5. Select Streamable HTTP as the transport type

6. Enter the server URL: https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/mcpdemo/mcp

7. For authentication, add a Bearer token env var — set an environment variable (e.g. NANOHUB_TOKEN) containing your token, then reference it as the Bearer value

The resulting config entry looks like:

{
  "mcpServers": [
    {
      "name": "nanohub-mcpdemo",
      "url": "https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/mcpdemo/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${NANOHUB_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop only supports local stdio MCP servers. Use the nanohub_mcp_client.py bridge included in the repository, which proxies stdio to the nanoHUB HTTP API.

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nanohub": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["/path/to/nanohub_mcp_client.py"],
      "env": {
        "NANOHUB_TOKEN": "{token}",
        "NANOHUB_TOOLS": "mcpdemo"
      }
    }
  }
}

Set NANOHUB_TOOLS to a comma-separated list to expose multiple tools:

"NANOHUB_TOOLS": "mcpdemo,rappture,another_tool"

Multiple Tools

HTTP clients (VS Code, Antigravity, Codex) connect to one tool per server entry. To expose multiple nanoHUB tools, add one entry per tool:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nanohub-mcpdemo": {
      "serverUrl": "https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/mcpdemo/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer {token}" }
    },
    "nanohub-rappture": {
      "serverUrl": "https://nanohub.org/api/mcp/rappture/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer {token}" }
    }
  }
}

Local Development

When running the MCP server locally (without nanoHUB), point clients directly at your local server:

http://localhost:8000/mcp

VS Code (via MCP: Open Workspace Folder MCP Configuration):

{
  "servers": {
    "my-local-server": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Verify the server is reachable before connecting a client:

curl -s http://localhost:8000/mcp
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}'