If you've set up the MCP Module (Early Access) and Claude Desktop shows "not a valid MCP server configuration" or silently drops your server entry, this is why.
claude_desktop_config.json only supports local (stdio) servers, direct url / type: "http" entries get silently rejected. The example JSON in the MCP Module Early Access thread was written for a generic MCP client, not Claude Desktop specifically.
This will be silently rejected:
"servers": {
"ignition": {
"url": "http://localhost:8088/data/mcp/your_project_name",
"type": "http",
"headers": {
"X-Ignition-API-Token": "your-token-here"
}
}
}
Use this instead, bridge it with mcp-remote, a small Node package that translates the HTTP endpoint into the stdio interface Claude Desktop expects. Still no tunnel needed, still localhost, just one extra layer. You'll need Node.js installed:
"mcpServers": {
"ignition": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"mcp-remote",
"http://localhost:8088/data/mcp/your_project_name",
"--header",
"X-Ignition-API-Token:${IGNITION_API_TOKEN}"
],
"env": {
"IGNITION_API_TOKEN": "API_KEY_HERE"
}
}
}
npx will download mcp-remote the first time it runs, so the first launch may take a few extra seconds while it fetches the package, that's normal, not a hang. Once it connects, you'll see:
Hope this saves someone else the debugging time, happy to help if anyone hits a different error on this path.