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macOS only
Anthropic's standalone macOS desktop client

Claude Desktop + SSH through SSHive's MCP server

Use the standalone Claude Desktop app on macOS to talk to your live SSH/SFTP sessions. JSON snippet, restart, done.

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Claude Desktop is Anthropic's standalone macOS app, chat with Claude in a window outside of any IDE, with file uploads, project memory, and MCP server support. SSHive's MCP integration with Claude Desktop is the simplest of the three (Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop) because the config is a single JSON edit. You paste, you restart, you ask Claude to look at your servers. This is the right pairing when you want a "chat with my fleet" experience without committing to a coding session. Open Claude Desktop, ask "What is the disk usage on prod?", Claude calls SSHive's `ssh_execute` with `df -h`, replies with a summary. No IDE context, no code edits, just a stateful conversation about your infrastructure.

Set up Claude Desktop with SSHive in 4 steps

  1. 1

    Enable the MCP server in SSHive

    Open SSHive, Settings → MCP, toggle on. Copy the Bearer token.

  2. 2

    Open the Claude Desktop config file

    In Finder, navigate to `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`. If it does not exist, create it with the snippet below. Otherwise, merge the `mcpServers.sshive` key into the existing `mcpServers` object.

    Copy this
    {
  "mcpServers": {
    "sshive": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:49422/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}
  3. 3

    Restart Claude Desktop

    Quit Claude Desktop completely (Cmd+Q) and reopen. The next chat will show `sshive` in the tool list, click the small plug icon to verify.

  4. 4

    Connect SSH sessions to expose

    In SSHive, open the sessions you want Claude to be able to use. Then in Claude Desktop, just ask in plain English, Claude figures out which session to use via `ssh_list_sessions` and which command to run.

What to ask Claude Desktop

You ask

"What is the disk usage on prod, and which directories are the worst offenders?"

What happens

Claude calls `ssh_execute` with `df -h` then `du -sh /var/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h`, summarizes hot spots.

You ask

"How many active connections does my postgres have right now?"

What happens

Claude `ssh_execute`s `sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT count(*) FROM pg_stat_activity"` on the db-master session, returns the number with context.

You ask

"Read the systemd unit for nginx and tell me if it has any odd flags."

What happens

Claude `sftp_read_file`s `/etc/systemd/system/nginx.service` (or wherever it lives), audits ExecStart/ExecReload/Restart settings, flags anything non-standard.

Why use Claude Desktop with SSHive (vs Claude Code or Cursor)

Claude Desktop is the right paired client when your task is not "write code" but "ask questions about my fleet". Examples: triaging an alert at 9pm, doing a security audit pass on a server config, getting a summary of what is unusual in the last 24h of logs. You do not need an IDE's editing context for those; you need a conversational interface with the ability to actually look. Claude Desktop's standalone window stays out of your way and keeps a longer-running thread alive than a code-focused CLI session. The other reason to pick Claude Desktop is multi-MCP composition. Anthropic ships a Claude Desktop MCP server registry with filesystem, GitHub, Slack, Linear, Sentry, and dozens more. You can have SSHive's SSH/SFTP MCP server alongside the Sentry MCP server, Claude can correlate an alert from Sentry with a `journalctl -u myservice` on the implicated host via SSHive, in one chat, without you switching apps. The composability is where Claude Desktop's MCP shines, and SSHive slots in naturally as the SSH/SFTP/Mac-fleet provider.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Claude Desktop's config file again?+
`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` on macOS. If you have never installed an MCP server, the file does not exist yet, create it with the snippet from SSHive Settings → MCP.
Claude Desktop says "sshive: failed to start", what now?+
Two likely causes. 1) SSHive is not running, Claude Desktop tries to reach the local MCP server on port 49422 and gets a connection refused. Open SSHive. 2) The Bearer token is wrong, token rotates on every SSHive launch, so if you closed SSHive and reopened, copy the new token into `claude_desktop_config.json`.
Does Claude Desktop see my whole Mac or just SSHive sessions?+
Just the SSHive sessions and SFTP paths SSHive exposes. The MCP server is sandboxed to seven specific tools, it cannot run arbitrary `ls` on your local Mac, cannot read your local files, cannot access apps other than SSHive. The Claude Desktop "filesystem" MCP server (separate, optional) is what lets Claude touch your local files.

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