Connect Claude Code to Pressidium MCP | Pressidium Knowledge Base

This guide covers the Claude Code setup for Get started with Pressidium MCP.

Read the main guide first for beta requirements, security considerations, supported operations, and general troubleshooting. Then follow the steps below to connect Claude Code.

1. Configure the Pressidium MCP server

Open the project directory where you want to use Pressidium.

You do not need the MCP server source code. A regular working directory is sufficient.

Create .mcp.json in that directory.

If the file already exists, merge the pressidium entry into its existing mcpServers object.

Add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pressidium": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp-dashboard.pressidium.com/dashboard",
      "headers": {
        "X-Pressidium-Email": "${PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL}",
        "X-Pressidium-Password": "${PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code uses ${NAME} for environment variable references, whereas Cursor uses ${env:NAME}. Preserve the syntax shown for your AI application.

The .mcp.json file should contain variable references only. Do not replace ${PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL} or ${PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD} with your actual credentials or store passwords in shared project configuration.

Claude Code reads these values from the environment when it connects.

See Claude Code's MCP documentation.

2. Set your Dashboard credentials

The setup uses two local environment variables:

PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL
PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD

These contain your Pressidium Dashboard credentials. They are not separate credentials issued by Pressidium.

macOS, Linux, or WSL

Open a terminal, run bash, then run:

read -r -p "Pressidium Dashboard email: " PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL read -r -s -p "Pressidium Dashboard password: " PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD printf '\n' export PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD

The password is hidden while you type and is not entered as a shell command.

Windows PowerShell

Run:

$env:PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL = Read-Host "Pressidium Dashboard email" $env:PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD = [System.Net.NetworkCredential]::new(     '', (Read-Host "Pressidium Dashboard password" -AsSecureString) ).Password

These values remain available only for the current shell session.

Keep your Dashboard credentials out of AI conversations, screenshots, Git repositories, and shared configuration files.

3. Start Claude Code from the same terminal

After setting the credential variables, start Claude Code from the same project directory and shell by running claude.

This allows Claude Code to inherit PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL and PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD.

If you open a new terminal session, set the variables again before starting Claude Code.

If Claude Code is already running, stop it and restart it from the configured shell.

4. Approve the MCP configuration

When Claude Code detects the project MCP configuration, review the server URL and headers before accepting it.

Confirm that the connection uses https://mcp-dashboard.pressidium.com/dashboard and the two Pressidium authentication headers.

5. Check the MCP connection

In Claude Code, run /mcp .

Confirm that pressidium appears and is connected.

If the server does not appear or the connection fails, check the .mcp.json file, environment variables, and troubleshooting section below.

6. Verify the connection

Start with this request:

Use pressidium_whoami to verify my connection and show the selected team if available. Then use pressidium_list_sites to list the websites I can access. Include website names and whether each is Managed Hosting or standalone EDGE. Do not change any website settings.

Check that the returned account, team, and websites match what you expect in the Pressidium Dashboard.

Inspect the actual tool results as well as Claude Code's summary.

If you belong to multiple teams, ask:

List my Pressidium teams. Show me their names and ask which team to select before continuing.

After selecting the intended team, ask Claude Code to list its sites again.

For larger accounts, ask it to continue through all available pages and state whether the list is complete.

For additional verification prompts, return to Get Started with the Pressidium AI Connector.

7. Install Pressidium Agent Skills in Claude Code

Pressidium Agent Skills are optional for individual MCP requests. They add reusable workflows such as Site Guardian, Plugin Auditor, and Performance Review.

The beta package contains 38 skills: 29 building blocks and 9 combined workflows.

Download the related .zip file here.
Extract the package and locate the pressidium folder containing blocks and composites.

Keep the complete package together so referenced files remain available.

Install the package

These instructions use macOS, Linux, or WSL.

From the directory containing the extracted pressidium folder, run:

mkdir -p ~/pressidium-agent-skills cp -R pressidium ~/pressidium-agent-skills/

The resulting package should be available at:

~/pressidium-agent-skills/pressidium/

Claude Code discovers skills from:

~/.claude/skills/

Expose each individual Pressidium skill folder there using symbolic links. This keeps the original package together while making each folder containing SKILL.md discoverable.

Run:

pressidium_skill_root="$HOME/pressidium-agent-skills/pressidium" pressidium_skill_dest="$HOME/.claude/skills"  mkdir -p "$pressidium_skill_dest"  for pressidium_skill_dir in "$pressidium_skill_root"/blocks/* "$pressidium_skill_root"/composites/*; do   [ -f "$pressidium_skill_dir/SKILL.md" ] || continue    pressidium_skill_link="$pressidium_skill_dest/$(basename "$pressidium_skill_dir")"    if [ -e "$pressidium_skill_link" ] || [ -L "$pressidium_skill_link" ]; then     printf 'Already exists; check before replacing: %s\n' "$pressidium_skill_link"   else     ln -s "$pressidium_skill_dir" "$pressidium_skill_link"   fi done

Keep the original package in place. The symbolic links depend on it.

For native Windows, use a client-specific package layout supplied by Pressidium Support, or follow these instructions inside WSL with Claude Code also running there.

Restart Claude Code if the skills do not appear.

Confirm that Site Guardian and the other Pressidium skills are discoverable before trying a named workflow.

Once the skills are installed and visible in Claude Code, return to Get Started with Pressidium MCP to try the named workflows, explore practical examples, and learn how to interpret operation results.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
Authentication fails	Verify your Dashboard email and password, account access, and that the dedicated beta account does not use MFA. Confirm both environment variables exist in the process running Claude Code without printing their values.
No `pressidium` server appears	Check that `.mcp.json` is in the project directory, confirm its JSON syntax, then restart Claude Code and run `/mcp` again.
Credentials are set in the terminal but Claude Code cannot use them	Make sure Claude Code was started from the same shell where `PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL` and `PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD` were set.
The variables are not expanded	Confirm the headers use `${PRESSIDIUM_EMAIL}` and `${PRESSIDIUM_PASSWORD}` exactly as shown. Claude Code does not use Cursor's `${env:NAME}` syntax.
Claude Code attempts an OAuth flow	Confirm the MCP configuration uses the HTTP server and custom headers shown above. The current beta does not support MCP OAuth.
Wrong sites or no sites appear	Verify the connected account and selected team. List your Pressidium teams, select the intended one, and list its sites again. For larger accounts, check that all available pages were retrieved.
MCP works but Pressidium skills do not appear	Confirm the skill links exist under `~/.claude/skills/`, still point to the extracted package, and the original package has not been moved or deleted. Restart Claude Code.
A tool reports an unsupported environment or product	Confirm whether the target is Managed Hosting or standalone EDGE and whether you requested production or staging. Some operations are available only for particular products or environments.
A write operation times out	Check the returned job ID or the Pressidium Dashboard before retrying. A timeout does not necessarily mean the underlying operation stopped.

For authentication, permissions, unsupported operations, analytics, background jobs, and other issues that are not specific to Claude Code, see the troubleshooting section in Get Started with the Pressidium MCP.