A Model Context Protocol server that provides access to the currently active tab of iTerm
Iterm mcp mcp server lets Claude, Cursor and other MCP clients work with Iterm MCP directly. A Model Context Protocol server that provides access to the currently active tab of iTerm.
On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json On Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Once connected, the assistant can call these 7 tools directly:
write_to_terminal — Writes to the active iTerm terminal, often used to run a command. Returns the number of lines of output produced by the commandread_terminal_output — Reads the requested number of lines from the active iTerm terminalsend_control_character — Sends a control character to the active iTerm terminalFeatures — The Features tool exposed by this serverTools — The Tools tool exposed by this serverRequirements — The Requirements tool exposed by this serverDebugging — Since MCP servers communicate over stdio, debugging can be challenging. We recommend using the [MCPThe server is distributed via npm as @smithery/cli, so most clients can run it without a manual build step. Add it to your MCP client's configuration and restart the client to pick it up — the copy-paste configs for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are on this page.
Developer-tool servers are usually the first ones people connect, because they turn "help me with this code" into an assistant that can actually read the repo and act on it. Iterm MCP sits in that group, and the shape of its toolset — write_to_terminal, read_terminal_output, send_control_character among others — tells you what it is really for. Worth comparing against the other developer tools servers in this directory before you commit to one, since several overlap in scope but differ sharply in setup cost and permissions.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| write_to_terminal | Writes to the active iTerm terminal, often used to run a command. Returns the number of lines of output produced by the command. |
| read_terminal_output | Reads the requested number of lines from the active iTerm terminal. |
| send_control_character | Sends a control character to the active iTerm terminal. |
| Features | The Features tool exposed by this server. |
| Tools | The Tools tool exposed by this server. |
| Requirements | The Requirements tool exposed by this server. |
| Debugging | Since MCP servers communicate over stdio, debugging can be challenging. We recommend using the [MCP Inspector](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/inspector), which is available as a package script: |
{
"mcpServers": {
"iterm-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"iterm-mcp"
]
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
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