macOS Defaults

Read and write macOS user defaults and settings.

GitHub

mcp-server-macos-defaults MCP server

MCP server for reading/writing macOS defaults (settings)

Components

Tools

  • list-domains:
    • equivalent to running defaults domains
  • find:
    • equivalent to running defaults find <word>
  • defaults-read:
    • equivalent to running defaults read <domain> <key>
    • if key is not provided, the entire domain is read
  • defaults-write:
    • equivalent to running defaults write <domain> <key> <value>

Quickstart

Install

Claude Desktop

On MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json On Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Development

Building and Publishing

To prepare the package for distribution:

  1. Sync dependencies and update lockfile:
uv sync
  1. Build package distributions:
uv build

This will create source and wheel distributions in the dist/ directory.

  1. Publish to PyPI:
uv publish

Note: You'll need to set PyPI credentials via environment variables or command flags:

  • Token: --token or UV_PUBLISH_TOKEN
  • Or username/password: --username/UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME and --password/UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORD

Debugging

Since MCP servers run over stdio, debugging can be challenging. For the best debugging experience, we strongly recommend using the MCP Inspector.

You can launch the MCP Inspector via npm with this command:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv --directory /path/to/mcp-server-macos-defaults run mcp-server-macos-defaults

Upon launching, the Inspector will display a URL that you can access in your browser to begin debugging.

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