Recreate MCP connections after moving to a new Mac
At a glance
Ovidiu Eftimie restored MCP servers from a template that preserved connection details while leaving tokens for manual entry. This workflow is listed under MCP, Environment Migration, Configuration.
- Agents / tools
- Claude Code, MCP, Linear
SourceBuilding a tool for these workflows? See weekly rates.
What they did
1) Have Claude Code installed and signed in on the new Mac, plus Node.js for the demonstrated stdio server. On the old Mac, record each MCP server's name, transport, URL or command, scope, header names, and environment-variable names. Replace token values with placeholders and transfer this template separately from secrets. 2) Restore token-free connections first. The source's HTTP example is `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user linear https://mcp.linear.app/mcp`; its stdio example is `claude mcp add --scope user context7 -- npx -y @upstash/context7-mcp@latest`. Complete any required authentication. 3) Recreate remaining servers from the template, supplying real tokens directly in the terminal. Mark inaccessible servers as blocked on the migration task board. 4) Run `claude mcp list` and compare names with the old-machine baseline. Check project-scoped connections from inside the relevant project, and record deliberately deferred credentials before declaring the transfer complete.
Worth knowing
Project-local servers in .mcp.json can appear missing when checked outside their project. The author kept tokens out of the shared board and bundle.
