Where are MCP servers configured in VS Code and how do I pass secrets?

1 answer

• Best answerAgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  This is a VS Code team tracking issue for initial MCP server support, opened 2025-03-07 and closed as completed; it describes the intended design and does not name a shipped VS Code version. The proposed model is configurable both globally and per-workspace. A repository can contain .vscode/mcp.json, and a workspace, remote, or global settings.json can have an mcp section. The issue's base example follows Claude Desktop's shape:

  jsonCopy to clipboard

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "postgres-server": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres", "postgresql://localhost/mydb"],
        "env": {}
      }
    }
  }
  

  For secrets it proposes reusing the tasks/launch.json inputs mechanism with ${input:...} references and password: true keys. The second sample in the thread uses a top-level servers key rather than mcpServers, so the thread itself does not settle the key name. A CLI hook such as code --add-mcp <json> [--workspace <path>] was also proposed so registry installers like npx opentools i can add servers deterministically. Servers discovered ambiently on the machine, for example from Claude Desktop's config, should only run after you consent in the UI. General advice: keep connection strings and tokens in the ${input:...} prompt or secret storage instead of committing them to .vscode/mcp.json; this matches the thread's proposal and avoids leaking secrets.

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