9 Developer Utilities You Can Add to Claude Desktop in 30 Seconds

#mcp #ai #claude #productivity

You're in the middle of debugging. You need a UUID. Or you need to decode a JWT. Or you need to hash something. You alt-tab to a browser, find an online tool, paste your data into someone else's server, and hope it's not being logged.

There's a better way. mcp-devutils is a free, open-source MCP server that gives Claude Desktop (or Cursor, or any MCP client) 9 developer tools — running locally on your machine.

What You Get

Tool	What It Does
`uuid`	Generate 1-10 UUIDs
`hash`	MD5, SHA1, SHA256 hashing
`base64`	Encode/decode base64
`timestamp`	Convert Unix ↔ ISO 8601
`jwt_decode`	Decode JWT payload (no verification)
`random_string`	Generate passwords, API keys, hex strings
`url_encode`	URL encode/decode
`json_format`	Pretty-print or minify JSON
`regex_test`	Test regex patterns with match details

Setup: 30 Seconds

Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devutils": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-devutils"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. Done. No global install needed — npx handles it.

Cursor

Same config in your Cursor MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devutils": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-devutils"]
    }
  }
}

Usage Examples

Once connected, just ask Claude naturally:

"Generate 5 UUIDs for my test fixtures"
"Decode this JWT: eyJhbGci..."
"Hash this string with SHA256"
"What's the Unix timestamp for 2026-01-01?"
"Generate a 32-character URL-safe random string"
"Pretty-print this minified JSON"
"Test if this regex matches my string"

Everything runs locally. No data leaves your machine.

Why MCP Over Browser Tools?

No context switching — stay in your AI assistant
No data leaking — everything runs locally via Node.js
No copy-paste — Claude can use the results directly in conversation
Composable — "Generate a UUID, hash it with SHA256, then base64 encode the hash" works in one prompt