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swsd-mcp

Quick start

This guide gets swsd-mcp running locally in your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Continue, Cline) using npx. For Microsoft Copilot Studio, see the Deployment guide — Copilot Studio needs an HTTP-transport server, which is a different setup.

What you need

Section titled “What you need”
  • An MCP client installed (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Continue, Cline, or any other Model Context Protocol client)
  • Node.js 20 or newer (for npx)
  • A SolarWinds Service Desk admin token — see below

Generate an SWSD admin token

Section titled “Generate an SWSD admin token”

In the SWSD web UI, navigate:

  1. Setup → Users & Groups → Users
  2. Click your user to open the detail page
  3. Click Actions → Generate JSON Web Token
  4. Copy the token (it’s a long JWT string)

Add the MCP config

Section titled “Add the MCP config”

Every stdio-capable MCP client uses the same JSON shape. Add this block under mcpServers in your client’s config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "swsd": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "swsd-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SWSD_TOKEN": "your-jwt-here",
        "SWSD_BASE_URL": "https://api.samanage.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace your-jwt-here with the token from the previous step. EU tenants use https://apieu.samanage.com instead.

Find the right config file

Section titled “Find the right config file”
ClientConfig file path
Claude Desktop (macOS)~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Desktop (Windows)%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Desktop (Linux)~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Code~/.claude.json (or use the shortcut below)
Cursor~/.cursor/mcp.json
Continue, Cline, other clientscheck your client’s docs — same JSON shape

Create the file if it doesn’t exist. Then restart your client so it picks up the new server.

Claude Code shortcut

Section titled “Claude Code shortcut”

Skip editing the file manually:

Terminal window
claude mcp add swsd \
  --env SWSD_TOKEN="your-jwt-here" \
  --env SWSD_BASE_URL="https://api.samanage.com" \
  -- npx -y swsd-mcp

This writes the same config block as above to ~/.claude.json.

Verify it works

Section titled “Verify it works”

In your MCP client, ask the agent:

“Use swsd to check if you can connect.”

The agent should call the swsd_health_check tool and report success. Once you see that, you’re set up.

If something doesn’t work, see Configuration for the full env-var reference and common troubleshooting.

What you can do now

Section titled “What you can do now”

Try asking the agent things like:

  • “List my recent open incidents.” → calls swsd_list_incidents
  • “Show me incident 12345 with comments.” → calls swsd_get_incident + swsd_list_incident_comments
  • “Search the knowledge base for ‘VPN troubleshooting’.” → calls swsd_search_solutions
  • “What custom fields are available on incidents?” → calls swsd_describe_custom_fields

The full tool catalog is in Tools reference.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”