Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server and AWS Strands Agents Demonstration
Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server and AWS Strands Agents Demonstration. Exposed over MCP by the aws strands agents: building and connecting your first model context protocol (mcp) server mcp server, that capability becomes something an assistant can invoke while it works, not something you go and do afterwards.
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standardized interface that enables AI agents to interact seamlessly with external services. In this post, we’ll demonstrate how to build an MCP server that integrates with Shutterstock — my favorite platform for high-quality licensed images, videos, music, and creative tools — using their robust API. We’ll then show how to expose these rich media search capabilities to agents developed with Strands Agents, AWS’s code-first framework for building production-ready AI agents. By orchestrating multiple agents, we’ll enable them to access the National Weather Service (NWS)
Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:
Optional — Amazon Q Developer CLI for last section of postYou will need 3 environment variables: API_KEY, SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN, YOUR_SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
The server ships on npm as corepack, so your MCP client can launch it on demand — there is no separate build step. Add the server block to your client's configuration, restart it, and the tools register themselves.
This sits in the cloud and infrastructure group, where several servers overlap in what they claim to do but differ sharply once you actually set them up. AWS Strands Agents: Building And Connecting Your First Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server's toolset — Optional — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by garystafford; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Optional | Amazon Q Developer CLI for last section of post |
{
"mcpServers": {
"aws-strands-agents-mcp-demo": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "corepack"],
"env": {
"API_KEY": "your-value",
"SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN": "your-value",
"YOUR_SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN": "your-value"
}
}
}
}Add to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| API_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| YOUR_SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
Manage your whole Supabase project in conversation — database, auth, storage, Edge Functions and branches.
Stop letting your assistant hallucinate n8n node parameters — this server hands it the real schemas, templates and validation.
AWS Labs' official server suite — current AWS docs, CDK guidance, cost analysis and service tools.
Cloud browsers for AI agents — automation sessions that run in Browserbase's fleet, not on your machine.
Workers, KV, R2 and D1 by conversation — Cloudflare's official remote servers for building and observability.
Dashboards, Prometheus and Loki queries, incidents and alerts — observability by conversation.