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The MCP Inspector is an interactive developer tool for testing and debugging MCP servers. While the Debugging Guide covers the Inspector as part of the overall debugging toolkit, this document provides a detailed exploration of the Inspector’s features and capabilities.

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Getting started

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Installation and basic usage

The Inspector runs directly through npx without requiring installation: 
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector <command>

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector <command> <arg1> <arg2>

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Inspecting servers from npm or PyPI

A common way to start server packages from npm or PyPI.
  • npm package
  • PyPI package
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx <package-name> <args>
# For example
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /Users/username/Desktop

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Inspecting locally developed servers

To inspect servers locally developed or downloaded as a repository, the most common way is:
  • TypeScript
  • Python
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node path/to/server/index.js args...
Please carefully read any attached README for the most accurate instructions.

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Feature overview