Getting Started With Strapi MCP and How To Extending With Custom Tools
Strapi MCP is now in GA! 🎉 Everything you need to get started with Strapi MCP. Full guide 👉 https://strapi.link/mcp-guide In this video I'm going to show you how to get started with Strapi MCP and set it up in your own project. As of Strapi v5.47, the MCP server is included by default. I'll walk you through enabling it, generating an admin token, connecting it to Claude Desktop, and registering your own custom tools. Before we dig into the setup, I show off a project I built for myself: a completely local-first "music knowledge base" app that summarizes YouTube music courses, lectures, and tutorials into easy-to-read blog posts. Then I connect it to Claude via Strapi MCP so I can talk to all my data in plain English — and even have Claude pull topics from one Strapi instance and publish a draft blog post to a totally separate one. It's a wild example, but it shows just how powerful MCPs are as connectors between your data, an LLM, and your APIs. After the demo, I take you step by step through: - Spinning up a fresh Strapi project with the CLI - Enabling MCP in `server.ts` - Creating an admin token with the right permissions - Registering Strapi MCP in Claude Desktop's config - Building a custom `stats` service, controller, and route - Registering that service as a custom MCP tool with Zod - The important distinction between the Content API and the Admin API and why MCP permissions live on the admin token, not on user roles I'm saving registering tools via a **plugin** for the next video, so make sure you're subscribed. Got questions? Join Strapi's open office hours Wednesday 12:30pm CST, or just drop me a comment below. I'll see you in the next one! 👋 ⏱️ Timestamps 0:00 – Intro: Strapi MCP is in beta 0:43 – Demo: my local-first music knowledge base (connected to Claude) 6:42 – Let's get started with Strapi MCP 6:55 – Creating a new Strapi project 8:00 – Enabling MCP in server.ts 8:06 – Creating an admin token 8:38 – Registering Strapi MCP in Claude Desktop 9:18 – Listing tools & articles through the MCP 9:31 – Building a custom stats tool (service, controller, route) 11:48 – Content API vs Admin API permissions 13:04 – Registering the service as a custom MCP tool 15:21 – Testing the custom tool in Claude 15:58 – Recap & what's next