Deployment Strategies

Stdio MCP servers deploy as npm packages or standalone binaries. The simplest distribution: publish to npm, and users install with npm install -g your-mcp-server. Claude Code configuration points to the installed binary. This works for individual developers and small teams. For organizations, publish to a private npm registry and include the server in your project's devDependencies — it installs automatically with npm install.

SSE-based MCP servers deploy like any web service — Docker containers, cloud functions, or managed hosting. The additional requirement is a persistent connection: SSE uses long-lived HTTP connections, so your hosting must support them. Serverless functions with cold starts are a poor fit. A long-running container (Docker, Fly.io, Railway) or a traditional server (EC2, DigitalOcean) provides the persistent connection SSE requires.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "customer-tools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "your-org/customer-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "API_KEY": "${CUSTOMER_API_KEY}"
      }
    },
    "analytics": {
      "url": "https://mcp.your-org.com/analytics",
      "transport": "sse"
    }
  }
}