DEV Community

Qasim Muhammad
Qasim Muhammad

Posted on

Working with nylas mcp serve: Start the Nylas MCP server for AI assistant integration

Start the Nylas MCP server for AI assistant integration. One command bridges the gap between your AI assistant and your communication data.

The nylas mcp serve command starts a Model Context Protocol server that exposes Nylas email, calendar, and contacts as tools for AI assistants. Choose --transport stdio for direct piping to Claude Code, Cursor, or VS Code, or --transport sse for network-based connections.

Syntax

nylas mcp serve [--transport stdio|sse] [--port PORT]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Examples

Start in stdio mode for Claude Code:

nylas mcp serve --transport stdio
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Start SSE server on a custom port:

nylas mcp serve --transport sse --port 3200
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Tips

Debug mode: Add --verbose to see the underlying API requests and responses — useful when something doesn't behave as expected.

Script-friendly: Add --json for machine-readable output and --yes (where supported) to skip confirmations in automated pipelines.

How It Works

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard from Anthropic. It defines how AI assistants discover and call external tools. The Nylas MCP server registers email, calendar, and contact operations as tools — your assistant sees them in its tool palette automatically.

Related Commands


Full docs: nylas mcp serve reference — all flags, advanced examples, and troubleshooting.

All commands: Nylas CLI Command Reference

Get started: brew install nylas/nylas-cli/nylasother install methods

Top comments (0)