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Welcome to the MCP toolkit guide

March 2, 2026

Jeff Sheffield Jeff Sheffield

Making some extended notes on the docker desktop tour of the MCP Toolkit guide.

Figure out how to re-play the Tour... so I can update these notes as needed.

The Docker MCP Toolkit is a management interface that lets you set up, manage, and run containerized MCP servers and connect them to MCP clients. Learn More with the Docker MCP Server Toolkit UI

  • Add an MCP Server from the catalog
  • Connect with a client
  • Test with a prompt

MCP Toolkit

  • Catalog tab: contains all of the MCP servers you can add to your toolkit.
    • Add the Playwright server ( + button on the server card )
  • Clients tab: (MCP Gateway) now that you have added an MCP server you can connect to it with a MCP client. The MCP Toolkit works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Visual Studio Code, and many other MCP clients. Claude Code is a client
  • Connect your client: you may need to re-start your client after connecting

Congratulations! You've successfully set up your first MCP server with the Docker MCP Toolkit. What can you do next?

Testing Steps

  1. fire up your MCP client and try these prompts.
  2. Start building more complex workflows by adding additional MCP servers from the Docker Catalog. Explore servers for GitHub, file system access, database operations, and more.

Note: in order to invoke tools, some clients like VS Code or Cursor require you to use Agent mode.

Step 1: Prompt

In the next terminal ( where you will run claude code )

claude mcp list
/mcp
Using the tools provided from the Docker MCP Server, 
go to https://news.ycombinator.com and find the top 3 trending topics right now. 
Choose the most interesting one and summarize what the discussion is about.

stuck? see the verification instructions

MCP Toolkit documentation

Abbreviations