Connect an assistant through the MCP server

Connect an assistant through the MCP server#

This guide shows you how to give an MCP client, such as Claude Desktop or Claude Code, access to a Plone site through the plone-client MCP server.

Install the server#

Install plone-client as a tool with the mcp extra. Add the markdown extra too, on Python 3.12 or later, so the assistant can write pages in Markdown.

uv tool install "plone-client[mcp,markdown]"

pipx install "plone-client[mcp,markdown]"

Add a profile for the site#

The server connects with a profile, so the password stays in the keyring and never reaches the assistant.

plone-client profile add blog --url https://example.org --username editor
plone-client profile test blog

To keep the assistant from changing anything, make the profile read-only.

plone-client profile add blog-ro --url https://example.org --username editor --read-only

If the profile’s URL is the backend rather than the Volto frontend, add the URL of the frontend, so the assistant can learn the site’s blocks.

plone-client profile add local --url http://localhost:8080/Plone --username admin --frontend-url http://localhost:3000

Refer to Manage profiles for the other ways to keep a secret.

Register the server with your assistant#

Add the server to the current project.

claude mcp add plone-blog -- plone-client mcp --profile blog

Pass --scope user to make it available in every project, or --scope project to share it with the project’s other contributors in .mcp.json.

Add the server to claude_desktop_config.json, in Settings ‣ Developer ‣ Edit Config, then restart Claude Desktop.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "plone-blog": {
      "command": "plone-client",
      "args": ["mcp", "--profile", "blog"]
    }
  }
}

If Claude Desktop cannot find plone-client, write its full path in command, which which plone-client prints.

Configure a server that runs this command over standard input and output.

plone-client mcp --profile blog

Serve several sites from one server#

If you work with several sites, register one server for all of them rather than one server per site. Add a profile for each site first, with a description that says what the site is, because the assistant reads it to pick the site.

plone-client profile add docs --url https://docs.example.org --username editor --description "Documentation, production"

Name the profiles with --site, or serve every profile with --all.

claude mcp add --scope user plone -- plone-client mcp --site blog --site docs

To serve the same set of sites from several places, save them as a group, and serve the group.

plone-client profile group-set customer blog docs
claude mcp add --scope user plone -- plone-client mcp --group customer

A site added to the group later is served the next time the assistant starts the server. Each tool then takes a site argument, and the list_sites tool describes the sites. A read-only profile stays read-only: the server refuses to change that site, and still changes the others.

Preview changes first#

To see what the assistant would change without changing anything, start the server in a dry run.

claude mcp add plone-blog-preview -- plone-client mcp --profile blog --dry-run

Each tool that changes the site then returns the requests it would send.

Check the connection#

Ask the assistant to call the site_info tool. It reports the site, the user the server is logged in as, and whether it is read-only or in a dry run.

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