Claude Desktop connects to the Moodle and Ed Discussion Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers as local processes; see MCP servers for what each surface offers. Official reference: Connect to local MCP servers, fetched 2026-09-21.

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Prerequisites

  • moodle-cli and edstem-cli installed and signed in. See Install and Install.
  • Claude Desktop installed. It’s available for macOS and Windows.

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Config file location

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Open it from Claude Desktop itself: Claude menu → Settings → Developer → Edit Config.

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Preferred: moodle mcp connect

This writes a bridge entry directly to the config file above:
Restart Claude Desktop after connecting — it only reads this file at launch.Claude Desktop’s remote-connector support is limited to what claude.ai itself exposes; for OAuth or header-based remote access from the desktop app, use claude.ai’s connector settings, covered on Connect claude.ai.

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Verify the connection

Restart Claude Desktop, then click the “Add files, connectors, and more” control in the bottom-left of the message box, open Connectors → Manage connectors, and select the server to see its available tools. If it doesn’t appear, check the logs:
  • macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp*.log
mcp.log covers connection failures; mcp-server-<name>.log carries that server’s own stderr output.