For your AI agent (MCP)

The same engine, exposed over the Model Context Protocol so coding agents (Claude Code, Copilot agent mode, Cursor, …) query your project’s real values instead of grepping for them.

Is this Strapi’s MCP server?

No — and they don’t compete. Strapi ships its own MCP server (GA since 5.49), and it’s good at something DevKit deliberately doesn’t do.

	Strapi MCP (official)	DevKit MCP
Acts on	your content — entries in a running app	your codebase — the files in your editor
Reads	the live API, over HTTP	your real schema.json and source files
Needs	a running instance + an admin token	nothing: no server, no token, no network
Requires	Strapi ≥ 5.47, enabled explicitly	Strapi v4 or v5, zero config
Typical ask	”create an article draft and publish it"	"what code uses api::article.article?”
Tools	CRUD per content-type (list, get, create, update, publish…)	resolve, validate, find references, dependency graph, dead code, broken refs, routes
Can change	your content	your code (rename, move, schema edits — Pro)

Use Strapi’s MCP to work with your content. Use DevKit to work on your code.

Plenty of projects want both — they answer different questions, and nothing stops an agent from having the two connected at once. DevKit also keeps working when the app doesn’t: mid-migration, on a failing build, in CI, or on a Strapi v4 project.

Setup

In your editor — nothing to configure

In VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf and Antigravity the server is bundled in the extension and auto-registered with the editor’s MCP support. Install the extension and your agent can use the tools immediately — no config, no separate install.

On editors without the MCP-provider API (e.g. VSCodium), install the extension for the editor features and wire the standalone server below for your agent.

In Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or another MCP client

Already in a VS Code-family editor?

Skip this section. The bundled server (above) is the same engine, already auto-registered — adding the npx config too would just run a second copy. Use npx only for a client that isn’t a VS Code-family editor (Claude Desktop, the Claude Code CLI, …). If you run both, keep the extension up to date — the @latest below keeps the standalone server in step with it. Avoid pinning an exact version: it freezes you out of fixes.

Point the client at the devkit-for-strapi-mcp stdio server. The recommended config runs it with npx (no global install) and passes your project’s absolute path:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devkit-for-strapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "devkit-for-strapi-mcp@latest", "/absolute/path/to/your/strapi-project"]
    }
  }
}

The path argument is optional but the most reliable default — it’s indexed at startup, so the first tool call already works, on every client. Omit it to rely on the client’s roots capability or the cwd, or register the project later with the add_project tool.

Where this config file lives:

• Claude Code — a .mcp.json at your project root, or run claude mcp add devkit-for-strapi -- npx -y devkit-for-strapi-mcp@latest . (the trailing . is the current directory — Claude Code runs the server from your project root, so it resolves correctly via the cwd fallback)
• Claude Desktop — claude_desktop_config.json (then restart the app):
  • Windows — %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
  • macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Cursor / Windsurf / others — their MCP settings (an mcp.json), same mcpServers block.

For the Pro refactor tools, add an env block — "env": { "DEVKIT_LICENSE_KEY": "polar_xxx" } (see Activating your licence).

Windows

If your client reports npx was not found, wrap it: "command": "cmd", "args": ["/c", "npx", "-y", "devkit-for-strapi-mcp@latest", "<path>"].

Note

The standalone server is published on npm as devkit-for-strapi-mcp, and listed in the official MCP registry as io.github.PaulRichez/devkit-for-strapi-mcp. In the VS Code-family editors above you don’t need it — the same server ships bundled in the extension (zero-config).

Set this up earlier? You may be stuck on an old version

npx caches what it downloads and will keep running that copy — for months, and even without a version pin. If you configured the server before reading this, it may still be an early build, with bugs that are long fixed.

Check what’s actually running: ask your agent to call server_info, which reports the real version, and compare it with the latest on npm.

If it’s behind, clear the npx cache and restart your MCP client:

• macOS / Linux — rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx
• Windows — rmdir /s /q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\npm-cache\_npx"

The @latest in the config above resolves the tag from the registry on every start, so this won’t happen again.

Tools

Full parameters and return shapes for every tool are in the MCP tool reference. A quick map:

Know — read the project’s truth: list_projects, list_content_types, list_components, list_artifacts, get_schema, resolve, validate_reference, find_references, list_routes.

Understand — health & impact: list_unused (dead code), list_broken_refs, coverage, find_relation_usages, list_refs, dependencies / dependents (the dependency graph, for cut analysis).

Refactor (Pro) — plan → review → apply: plan_rename_method / plan_rename_entity, plan_move / plan_move_entities, plan_change_relation, plan_rename_attribute, create_plugin, extract_to_plugin, then apply_edits / apply_rename.

Every refactor returns a contractual, reviewable plan (text edits + file creates/renames/deletes + content fingerprints). Applying is explicit and safe by construction: the executor is confined to your discovered project root(s) (symlink-resolved), refuses to silently overwrite, verifies the fingerprints first (a stale plan is rejected), is best-effort transactional, and self-verifies afterward. Guarantee, don’t guess — that principle applies to writes too.