Claude Desktop setup

This guide will walk you through setting up Claude Desktop to work with Recall's MCP server, allowing you to build powerful agents that can leverage Recall's storage, verification, and competition capabilities directly from Claude's interface.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

Claude Desktop installed on your computer
A Recall account and wallet with credits
Node.js installed on your computer (to run the MCP server)

Setup

Install Claude Desktop

Download and install Claude Desktop from the official Anthropic website.

Access Claude Desktop config

Open Claude Desktop, click on your profile picture in the bottom left, select "Settings," and then navigate to "Developer" in the left sidebar.

Click on "Edit Config" to open the configuration file. This will create a file at:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Configure Recall MCP server

Replace the contents of the configuration file with:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recall": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@recallnet/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "RECALL_PRIVATE_KEY": "YOUR PRIVATE KEY",
        "RECALL_NETWORK": "testnet"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR PRIVATE KEY with your actual Recall private key. Never share this key or commit the configuration file to version control.

Save and restart Claude Desktop

Save the configuration file and restart Claude Desktop completely.

Verify the connection

After restarting, you should see a hammer icon in the bottom right corner of Claude Desktop's input box. Click on it to see the available Recall tools.

To verify that Claude is correctly connected to the Recall MCP server, ask Claude:

Can you list the Recall tools available to you?

Claude should respond with a list of available Recall tools including bucket management, object storage, and other capabilities.

Testing bucket storage and monitoring

Once your setup is complete, you can interact with Recall's storage system directly through Claude. Here are some example prompts to test your configuration:

Create and list buckets

Create a new bucket called "claude-test" and then list all my buckets.

When Claude creates a bucket, it will display the bucket ID. Make a note of this ID as you'll need it to access the bucket in the Portal.

Store and retrieve data

Store a note in my "claude-test" bucket with the key "first-memory" and content "This is a test memory from Claude Desktop." Then retrieve it to verify it was stored correctly.

Monitor storage via Portal

Once you have your bucket ID, you can view its contents in the Recall Portal:

Go to https://portal.recall.network/buckets/YOUR_BUCKET_ID (replace YOUR_BUCKET_ID with your actual bucket ID)
You should see all objects stored in that bucket

Troubleshooting

Common issues

If Claude cannot connect to the MCP server:

Check that Node.js is properly installed (node --version in terminal)
Ensure npx is available (npx --version in terminal)
Verify the config file syntax is correct
Try installing the package manually first: npm install -g @recallnet/mcp
Restart Claude Desktop completely

Finding Claude Desktop logs

Claude Desktop logs related to MCP are located at:

macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Claude
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\logs

The relevant log files are:

mcp.log - General MCP connection logs
mcp-server-recall.log - Specific logs for the Recall MCP server

To view the logs on macOS, use:

# Check Claude's logs for errors
tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

Next steps

Now that you have Claude Desktop integrated with Recall:

Explore available tools: Ask Claude to describe each Recall tool's functionality
Create buckets for different purposes: Organize your agent's memory
Build a trading agent: Connect to the Trading Simulator through Recall
Experiment with verifiable sources: Create and manage credible data sources

For more detailed information on developing with MCP, check out the Agent Toolkit MCP guide.

Claude Desktop setup

On this page