MCP Servers No tools found

Bug Reports
42

@gitcnd – I started by realizing that I was losing [self] context by letting YOLO F_■■■■_up…

esp when I had a long context thread… and previously baked ■■■■ broke.

–

So, while interacting with the bot, I had already been giving it really explicit development_diary.rmd and diary.rmd directions, but also having it do explicit operations where I entrusted YOLO bot to follow bidding…

What happened was I noticed the early buances in failure to comply…

So I directected it to wrap all executions in a .ps1, and to include my header directicves (Always include date, version, invocation instructs, description, dependencies, etc…)

This worked well in earlier versions…

I directed that ALL invocations to be .ps1s in /scripts of project dir…

I then attempted to have it table the scripts in my local postgress, and I could then later call them from all future projects (this was pre-MCP dev on @cursor side) – along with a ton of frustrations by claudes horrific UX.

So, I went down a lot of forks…

Ive posted about many here…

(@cursor, give me a command to have Cursor.APP -->> Auto summerize my @cursor.furom posts as a function (dont know why my @chats @docs @ Composer agent cant be directly told to pull a thread/context from @forum.cursor…)

Wanyway…

I found that bots still revert to && and other *nix shell pipes and calls…

Need an extension/Prompt Filtering FW - pre_cursor (given that @cursor transmogrifies all things prompts) (a wonderful thing)

–

maybe a meta of a @cursor.app | local LLM (like lmstudio-R1) then pull back to @cursor.app composer prompt so we have filtration levels that are user selected (in an enterprise, you can create security groups for prompt filtration, categer, all the data ■■■■ things… (you get it…)

but if cursor wants all this money, and the forum history is not in their favor at the moment, we really need to reup on what we expect from an AI_meta_IDE_Subscription that we have some negative inputs on…

/rant

43

To be clear, I have said previously why I am using YOLO.

I have 30 years of Dirof DevOPs in Big THings…

I entered mgmt too early… based on previous technical failures of those who I was to train as my mgr…

Thus, I have a lot of experiencing extraordinary devs, SWEs, blah blah for people you would know and companies affecting you…

–

I know how to speak to senior engineers… from all the above levels…

Not a brag - many people have this skill.

in my life ive always wanted to speak to a team and direct them in the way I see the project’s lazer…

I can do this with AI with a bunch of digital minions,

So I test YOLOing. I dont need to to it the how. Just the what. A guided ‘what’

So, I test YOLOs as if I was talking to a team of people who I managed at the level I expect AI to handle

45

for anyone directly using the npx on windows machine and get error，try to use command cmd /c npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking

this works for me, win uses powershell in default, and use npx… you will get UnauthorizedAccess

7 Likes
46

I have tried all of the different types of method that I could use, removing the other npx paths, full paths, environmental paths, scripts, etc. it’s still not solved maybe there’s a problem with the cursor I think

47

you can put authentication token in the index.js file, because Cursor’s mcp setting doesn’t support environment parameter in its UI so far

48

FYI - I did get this to work by using bunx but it opens an external terminal window and you MUST leave it open for MCP to work.

49

Having trouble getting MCP servers to connect in Cursor IDE, especially when using npx? If you’re on Windows, try setting the ‘Command’ in the MCP server configuration to:

cmd /c npx [your-mcp-server-command]

For example:

cmd /c npx @agentdeskai/[email protected]

This forces the command to execute in the traditional command prompt environment, which often resolves pathing and execution issues. Also, make sure to install any packages globally (npm install -g) and find the correct node version/directory. If issues, check your node/nvm version/config/permissions with where node

If this doesn’t fix it:

  • Ensure and check for a “ListTools” function to your node

  • Check that you have a correct file path node C:/path/to/index.js

  • Try a hard-coded version of the api key and install dependancies

3 Likes
50

Using cmd /c does indeed make the MCP server work, but there will still be an external command window that remains open; otherwise, it stops working

1 Like
51

thank you!
hope cursor will fix this bug soon

52

first time I have got it working on windows after trying lots of things, thanks!

1 Like
54

Can confirm, running an MCP server in stdio mode worked for me when putting everything into a shell script, as opposed to one long command with env vars at the front.

In other words, the below did not work for me as a “command” in the Cursor MCP setup:

ENV_VAR_1=foo ENV_VAR_2=bar mcp-server-startup-command

But this did:

/path/to/the/executable/script/below

#!/bin/bash

export ENV_VAR_1=foo
export ENV_VAR_2=bar
mcp-server-startup-command
55

This is the one! Unfortunately it keeps a cmd window open is there a way to get rid of that?

1 Like
56

This worked for me! Thank you!

57

yes, please get rid of cmd window!

58

creating .sh file helped cursor to recognize the MCP server, but then it coul’d not call it’s tool

failed to execute tool

while I am executing them via cli

59

Hey Guys, so I made a tool that basically does the fixes in this thread it that will just work in cursor with the env vars :smiley: using an NPM package that creates either a bash script or a bat script if you’re on windows

You can check out this command generator that takes a command, env variables and generates a one liner command that’ll just work

check it out and tell me what you think :smiley:

60

I added ~/.cursor/mcp.json with a couple of MCP servers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "[MY_API_KEY]"
      }
    },
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "/Users/[MY_HOME_DIR]/apps/MCP"
      ]
    }
  }
}

at ~/.cursor/mcp.json, and Cursor is not picking them up in the MCP Servers.

Screenshot 2025-03-13 at 12.17.03 PM
Screenshot 2025-03-13 at 12.17.03 PM782×175 9.35 KB

That’s after restarting Cursor.

61

I think I’ve found a way to use both nvm and cursor at the same time. First, you need to ensure that your local Node.js environment is functioning properly. Sometimes, running node -v won’t display the Node.js version, and you’ll need to use nvm use to select a specific version.

On macOS, you can set a default Node.js version by running:

nvm alias default 22.14.0

If you encounter the error no tools available, you can try installing the MCP (Model Context Protocol) service by running:

npm install @modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking

In my case, the installation failed because my npm mirror source was incorrect. I switched to the official npm registry by running:

npm config set registry https://registry.npmmirror.com

After switching, the installation succeeded. Finally, you can test if the service works locally by running:

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking

This should help you verify local access.

62

For what it is worth working on a linux computer (via ssh) and no tools available no matter how much troubleshooting I got through.

63

For anyone else running into this issue, this is what worked for me:

  • Close all Cursor windows
  • Go to Activity Monitor (on MacOS)
  • Find the process called “CursorUIViewService” and kill it
  • Restart Cursor

To be clear, I was using the @browsermcp/mcp server, not the sequential thinking one that many are talking about here.

To be honest, Cursor seems to have had quite a few issues of the cross window services running. I’ve encountered strange issues with the settings panel before where some settings were updating in one but not in the other. My guess is that MCP is susceptible to similar complexity of state sync and is non-trivial to solve.