MCP Server
CrossPaste ships with a built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that lets AI assistants (such as Claude, ChatGPT, and others) access your clipboard data through a standardized protocol.
What is MCP?
MCP is a standardized protocol that allows AI assistants to securely access local tools and data sources. By implementing an MCP server, CrossPaste lets AI assistants read your clipboard history so they can better understand context and offer help.
Enabling the MCP Server
- Open CrossPaste settings
- Find the MCP Server setting
- Turn on the MCP server switch
Connecting an AI Client
The settings page shows the exact command for your configuration. With the default port (13130), you can register CrossPaste in Claude Code like this:
claude mcp add crosspaste --transport sse http://localhost:13130/If you configured a custom port, replace 13130 with your port number.
Use Cases
AI-assisted coding
When you use an AI coding assistant that supports MCP, the AI can directly read the code snippets, error messages, and other content you have copied, without you pasting them into the conversation manually.
Smart workflows
An AI assistant can offer context-aware suggestions based on your clipboard content, for example:
- Analyzing an error log you copied
- Understanding the context of code you copied
- Processing text data you copied
Security boundaries
The MCP server listens on the local address (127.0.0.1) only, so other machines on the network cannot reach it. However, connections are not authenticated: while the server is enabled, any process running on your machine can connect to it and read your clipboard history. Also keep in mind that an AI assistant reading your clipboard through MCP may send that content to its cloud service for processing. Enable the server only on machines you trust, and use source exclusion to keep sensitive content out of your history.