Manage your MCP servers from one config — and stop paying the context-window tax — without leaving your editor.
mcpfold keeps one canonical config for your Model Context Protocol servers and folds it out to every client (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, and more), loading only the tools each agent needs and keeping secrets as references instead of hardcoded values. This extension puts the CLI's everyday commands — and a live drift indicator — in your status bar.
Features
- One-click commands — Sync, Preview changes (diff), Import from clients, Doctor, and Init, from the Command Palette or the status-bar menu.
- Live sync status — a status-bar item shows whether your MCP clients are in sync with your
canonical config (✓ in sync / ⚠ drift), re-checked when you save a config file. It runs
mcpfold sync --check, which writes nothing. - Token calculator — jump to the free MCP token calculator to see what your servers cost you in context tokens.
- Zero lock-in — a thin front-end over the open-source
mcpfoldCLI. It never reimplements CLI behavior, so what you see here is exactly whatmcpfold syncdoes.
Requirements
The mcpfold CLI. The extension auto-detects a global
install, and otherwise falls back to npx mcpfold@latest (needs Node.js 20+). To install it globally:
npm install -g mcpfold
Getting started
- Open a folder that has (or will have) an
mcp.config.jsonc. - Run mcpfold: Init a config from the Command Palette, then mcpfold: Import servers from clients to pull in what you already have.
- Run mcpfold: Sync to all clients. Watch the status bar for drift from then on.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
mcpfold.path |
(empty) | Path to the mcpfold binary. Empty = auto-detect (global, else npx). |
mcpfold.useNpx |
false |
Always run via npx mcpfold@latest. |
mcpfold.checkDriftOnSave |
true |
Re-check sync status when a config file is saved. |
Links
- Website & docs: https://mcpfold.com
- Reduce MCP token usage: https://mcpfold.com/compare/reduce-mcp-token-usage
- Source (MIT): https://github.com/dj-pearson/MCPFold
Contributing
Press F5 in the apps/vscode-extension folder to launch the extension in a development host
(see .vscode/launch.json). The smoke-test checklist and Marketplace
publish runbook live in PUBLISHING.md.
mcpfold is an independent, open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the MCP project, Anthropic, or any client named here.