One-click MCP install for Claude Desktop (skip the JSON)

#claude #mcp #ai

If you've ever set up an MCP server for Claude Desktop, you've edited claude_desktop_config.json by hand.

Find the file. Figure out the right keys. Add a command, an args array, restart Claude. If you got the JSON wrong, Claude silently fails to load and you wonder why nothing works.

There's a better way, and almost nobody knows it exists.
.mcpb — Desktop Extension format

Anthropic ships a format called MCPB — a packaged MCP server you install like any native app.

Think .dmg on macOS or .exe on Windows, but for AI tools.

The flow:

Download the .mcpb file
Double-click
Claude Desktop installs it, restart, done

No terminal. No JSON. No "what's the right path to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude?"

Try it

Here's one I built: claude-faf-mcp — 32 tools for persistent project context that survives
sessions.

👉 Download claude-faf-mcp-5.5.1.mcpb

Double-click it. Claude Desktop opens the install dialog. Confirm. Restart. You now have 32 MCP tools live. Tell Claude to "extract context from my README" and it runs.

The catch

First download goes through your browser's Downloads folder. So technically it's "download → find → double-click" on first use.

Every .mcpb after that? Genuinely one click — Chrome remembers the "always open files of this type" preference and hands future .mcpb files straight to Claude Desktop. Safari is even more permissive.

Why this matters

MCP is about to have a lot of servers. The JSON-config install path doesn't scale to mainstream devs who don't want to touch config files. .mcpb is the format that changes that.

If you ship an MCP server, package it as .mcpb. Your non-technical users will actually install it.

TL;DR