MCP Development Hosts

MCP development hosts provide specialized environments for building, testing, and interacting with AI-powered applications. This section explores various hosts that enhance MCP development.

Editors

  • Visual Studio Code: Ubiquitous, extensible code editor with robust TypeScript support
  • Cursor: AI-powered code editor optimized for developing MCP applications with inline AI assistance
  • VSCode: AI integrations for the Visual Studio Code editor
  • Cline: Modern, Rust-based terminal with AI command search and collaboration features
  • Windsurf: Browser-based interface for developing and testing MCP components

Chat Apps

  • Claude Desktop: Standalone application for direct interaction with Claude models
  • ChatGPT Desktop: Desktop application for interacting with OpenAI’s GPT models

The right development host can significantly improve your productivity when building MCP applications by providing specialized tools, interfaces, and workflows tailored to AI development.