Claude Desktop

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop installed on your machine
• The ionoscloud-mcp binary built and available. For more information, see Quick Start
• An IONOS CLOUD API token. For least-privilege access, see Authentication to scope the token to only the tools you need.

Add the MCP server

Open the Claude Desktop configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (~ is shorthand for your home folder, for example /Users/yourname)
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (paste %APPDATA%\Claude into the File Explorer address bar to open the folder)

If the file does not exist, create it with your text editor (TextEdit on macOS, Notepad on Windows) at the path above. Paste the JSON below as the entire file contents:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ionoscloud": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/ionoscloud-mcp",
      "env": {
        "IONOS_TOKEN": "your-api-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

To also enable Object Storage tools, add your Object Storage credentials:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ionoscloud": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/ionoscloud-mcp",
      "env": {
        "IONOS_TOKEN": "your-api-token",
        "IONOS_S3_ACCESS_KEY": "your-access-key",
        "IONOS_S3_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart and verify

1

Restart Claude Desktop

Quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

2

Open a new conversation

A hammer icon (🔨) appears in the input bar when MCP tools are available.

3

Test the connection

Type a prompt such as: List my IONOS CLOUD data centers.

Result: Claude responds with a list of your data centers: names, locations, and IDs.

If Claude responds with "I don't have access to tools for that" instead, Claude cannot reach the server. Check the Troubleshooting page.

Note: All tools are registered at startup by default, so Claude Desktop sees Compute Engine and Object Storage tools immediately. To reduce the startup tool count, set IONOS_MCP_LOAD_MODE=lazy in your configuration and restart Claude Desktop; then ask Claude to load the Compute or Object Storage tools as needed. For more information, see Selective Tool Loading.

For more on MCP support in Claude Desktop, see Getting started with local MCP servers in the Claude Help Center.