
Filesystem MCP
Let your AI assistant work with your files, safely.
Read, search, edit, and patch files in the folders you choose.
Secret files stay hidden, and risky changes wait for your OK.
What is this?
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is how AI apps such as Claude, GitHub Copilot in VS Code, and Cursor connect to tools. Filesystem MCP is an MCP server: a small program that runs on your computer and gives the AI 13 tools for working with files. You choose which folders it can use, and everything outside them is off limits.
Once it is connected, you can ask things like:
- "Find every TODO in this repo and group them by file."
- "Rename
getUsertofetchUserin all.tsfiles. Show me the diff first." - "What changed between
config.dev.jsonandconfig.prod.json?" - "Read the last 50 lines of
server.logand explain the error." - "Move the old screenshots into
archive/2025/."
Why Filesystem MCP?
- It is safe by default. The AI can use only the folders you allow, and
.envfiles, private keys, and cloud credentials are blocked. The server asks you before the AI deletes a non-empty folder, opens a folder you did not allow, or writes over a file withcreateormove. Onlycreateand copies can skip that question, by passingoverwrite: true. Edits made withedit,patch, andreplace_textapply without asking, but the AI can show you the diff first withdryRun. If the AI should never change anything,--read-onlyremoves every tool that writes. - Search and editing are made for code. The AI can search inside files like
grep, with a regex engine (RE2) that cannot hang, and by default the server skips.gitignored files and folders likenode_modules. Edits are exact-match replacements that return an error when the text does not match, and you can preview them as a diff first. - It saves the AI's context. The AI can read many files in one call or only the lines it needs, and it can check a file's size and token estimate before reading it.
- It works with any MCP client, over stdio or HTTP, on macOS, Linux, and Windows. You can install it with npx, Docker, or a one-click Claude Desktop extension, or build your own client on it.
- It is private. It runs on your machine, has no telemetry, and makes no network calls.






