Claude Operator: Prompt to Autonomy · 18 min · 130 XP

Where a server lives: local, project, user

Three scopes, three different answers to 'who else gets this connection?'

When you add an MCP server, you're also deciding who inherits it. Claude Code offers three scopes through --scope (or -s), and picking the wrong one is how a personal connection ends up in a teammate's session.

The same server, three different audiences

claude mcp list                     # what's already connected?

claude mcp add --transport http notion https://mcp.notion.com/mcp
# local (default): just you, just this project

claude mcp add -s project  ...      # everyone on the project, via .mcp.json
claude mcp add -s user     ...      # just you, across all your projects

local is the default and the right starting point: available only to you, only in the current project. user follows you across every project on your machine — good for a personal tool you genuinely use everywhere, bad for anything tied to one client's data. project writes to a .mcp.json file at the project root that you commit, so everyone who works on the repository gets it.

That last one deserves care, because it's the only scope where your choice lands in someone else's session. Claude Code asks each person to approve a project-scoped server before connecting it, rather than trusting the file just because it's in the repository — which is the right default, and also means a cloned repository can't silently approve its own servers.

Before adding anything, run claude mcp list and see what's already there. Starting with an inventory rather than an addition is a habit worth keeping: it's how you notice the server you connected for a one-off task four months ago and never removed.

Practice. List your configured servers and build a small table of name, provider, scope and purpose. Pick a sample integration and choose the narrowest scope that fits, writing down who will inherit it. Then connect one approved read-only or local practice server using its current official instructions and confirm it appears in the list with only the tools you expected.

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