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Claude Desktop Integration

Claude Desktop is Anthropic’s native app for macOS and Windows. It supports MCP servers through a config file that you edit manually — no command-line setup required after initial configuration.

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Prerequisites

  • Claude Desktop installed
  • Cognee MCP server available (see Quickstart or Local Setup)
  • OpenAI API key (for standalone mode) or Cognee Cloud credentials (for Cloud-connected mode)

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Config file location

Find the claude_desktop_config.json file for your platform:
PlatformPath
macOS~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
If the file does not exist yet, create it (and any missing parent directories).

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Setup Steps

1

Open the config file

open ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/
Open claude_desktop_config.json in your editor of choice.
2

Add the Cognee server

Choose the mode that matches your setup:
Point the MCP server at your Cognee Cloud tenant using your API Base URL and API key from the API Keys page:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cognee": {
      "command": "cognee-mcp",
      "args": [
        "--transport", "stdio",
        "--serve-url", "https://your-tenant.aws.cognee.ai",
        "--serve-api-key", "your-cognee-cloud-api-key"
      ]
    }
  }
}
Alternatively, set environment variables instead of inline args:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cognee": {
      "command": "cognee-mcp",
      "args": ["--transport", "stdio"],
      "env": {
        "COGNEE_SERVICE_URL": "https://your-tenant.aws.cognee.ai",
        "COGNEE_API_KEY": "your-cognee-cloud-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}
3

Restart Claude Desktop

Fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop. On macOS, use Cmd + Q (not just closing the window) to ensure the app reloads the config.
4

Verify the connection

Open a new conversation in Claude Desktop and ask:
“What Cognee tools do you have available?”
Claude should list tools such as remember, recall, and forget. If the tools don’t appear, check Troubleshooting below.
5

Use Cognee tools

Claude Desktop will use Cognee tools automatically when relevant. You can also prompt explicitly:
  • “Remember this in Cognee: we use PostgreSQL for the main database”
  • “Recall what you know about our database choices from Cognee”

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Troubleshooting

  • Confirm the config file is valid JSON (no trailing commas, correct bracket nesting).
  • On macOS, make sure you fully quit the app with Cmd + Q.
  • Check that cognee-mcp is on your PATH: run which cognee-mcp in a terminal. If it isn’t found, use the full path in the command field.
  • For source installs, verify the --directory path points to the folder that contains pyproject.toml.
  • Confirm the --serve-url (or COGNEE_SERVICE_URL) value matches exactly the API Base URL on your API Keys page — no trailing slash.
  • Regenerate your API key if it may have expired and update the config.
  • Verify the key value has no surrounding quotes or extra whitespace.
Run cognee-mcp --transport stdio directly in a terminal to see error output. Common causes are a missing LLM_API_KEY in standalone mode or an unreachable --serve-url endpoint.

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