Claude Desktop

A JSON block and a restart. Claude Desktop suits the support side of the work rather than the coding side — going through the morning queue, drafting replies, writing help articles — because you are not in a repository and do not need to be.

Find the config file

Platform	Path
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows	%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux	~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

In the app you can also open it from Settings → Developer → Edit Config, which creates the file if it does not exist yet.

Add the server

claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "helmdesk": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@helmdesk/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "HELMDESK_API_KEY": "sk_live_your_key_here",
        "HELMDESK_PROJECT": "ledgerly",
        "HELMDESK_ENVIRONMENT": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Only HELMDESK_API_KEY is required. Drop HELMDESK_ENVIRONMENT once you are ready to work against live data, and drop HELMDESK_PROJECT if your key reaches exactly one project.

If you already have other servers in the file, add helmdesk alongside them inside the same mcpServers object rather than adding a second one.

The gotcha that accounts for most failed setups

Claude Desktop launches servers with a minimal environment, so npx is often not on its PATH even though it is on yours. The server appears to do nothing and no useful error surfaces. If that happens, use an absolute path.

Find it with which npx on macOS or Linux, or where npx on Windows.

macOS, with an absolute path

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "helmdesk": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@helmdesk/mcp"],
      "env": { "HELMDESK_API_KEY": "sk_live_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

Windows, with an absolute path

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "helmdesk": {
      "command": "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\npx.cmd",
      "args": ["-y", "@helmdesk/mcp"],
      "env": { "HELMDESK_API_KEY": "sk_live_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

On Windows the executable is npx.cmd, and backslashes in JSON have to be doubled.

Restart properly

Closing the window is not enough on macOS — the app keeps running. Quit it fully (right-click the dock icon and choose Quit, or Cmd+Q) and open it again.

When it comes back, the tools icon in the message composer lists connected servers. Helmdesk should show 73 tools. If it shows none, the server failed to start — almost always the PATH problem above, or a JSON syntax error.

JSON is unforgiving here

A trailing comma or a missing brace makes the whole file fail to parse, and every server in it disappears rather than just the broken one. Every value must be a string: "3000", never 3000. If servers vanish after an edit, check the syntax first.

Try it

What is waiting for a reply in Helmdesk right now?

Read the oldest one and check whether the knowledge base already answers it.

Write a reply for it and show me the text before anything is sent.

Desktop asks before each tool call, so you see what it is about to do. Ten of the 73 tools reach a real customer — worth knowing which before you approve quickly out of habit. They are listed in Safety & approvals, and the prompt cookbook has more to try.