What is Mcp Server Restart

mcp-server-restart is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server designed to restart the Claude Desktop application on Mac after installing MCP tools.

Use cases

Use cases include simplifying the installation process of MCP tools and ensuring that changes take effect by restarting the Claude Desktop application seamlessly.

How to use

To use mcp-server-restart, simply ask Claude Desktop to ‘restart Claude’, and the application will restart automatically.

Key features

Key features include a status resource that provides current running status, PID, and timestamp in JSON format, and a tool that safely restarts the Claude Desktop application with progress notifications.

Where to use

mcp-server-restart is primarily used in environments where Claude Desktop is installed, particularly on MacOS systems requiring MCP tool installations.

mcp-server-restart

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for restarting Claude Desktop for Mac

Description

Using Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Claude Desktop tool installation is a bit cumbersome. The mcp-installer makes things easier by using MCP to allow you to ask Claude to install MCP tools.

Once they are installed, you still need to restart Claude Desktop to make the changes take effect… That is where mcp-server-restart comes in!

The mcp-server-restart package provides a MCP server for restarting Claude Desktop for Mac.

Usage

Ask Claude Desktop “restart Claude” and it will restart the application.

Features

Resources

The server provides a status resource:

• claude://status - Returns the current status of Claude Desktop
  • Returns JSON with running status, PID, and timestamp
  • MIME type: application/json

Tools

The server implements one tool:

• restart_claude - Restarts the Claude Desktop application
  • Safely terminates existing process if running
  • Launches new instance
  • Provides progress notifications during restart

Installation for Claude Desktop

Installation requires editing your Claude Desktop config file on MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Option 1: Install both the mcp-installer and the mcp-server-restart packages:

Add the following to your Claude Desktop config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-installer": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@anaisbetts/mcp-installer"
      ]
    },
    "mcp-server-restart": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-restart"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Option 1: Install only the mcp-server-restart package:

Add the following to your Claude Desktop config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-restart": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-restart"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Example prompts

Hey Claude, install the MCP server named mcp-server-fetch then restart Claude

Please restart Claude

Testing

Run the test suite:

pytest

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details