The Think Tool MCP Server enhances Claude's reasoning capabilities by providing a dedicated space for structured thinking during complex tasks.
Improves complex reasoning: Allows Claude to pause, reflect, and record internal thoughts as a scratchpad during response generation.
Structured problem-solving: Breaks down multi-step problems into clear, organized steps, improving consistency.
Policy compliance: Helps verify adherence to detailed policies and guidelines in various scenarios.
Tool integration: Works effectively with other MCP tools to analyze outputs and plan next steps.
Performance boost: Improves Claude's performance by up to 54% on complex tasks.
Important limitation: Does not perform external actions or retrieve new information.
Think Tool MCP Server
Official implementation of Anthropic's "think" tool as an MCP server - Dramatically improve Claude's reasoning capabilities with structured thinking.
What is the Think Tool?
This MCP server implements the exact "think" tool that Anthropic introduced in their engineering blog post. The Think Tool provides Claude with a dedicated space for structured reasoning during complex problem-solving tasks, enabling more thoughtful, accurate, and reliable responses.
Proven Performance Benefits
Anthropic's research demonstrates remarkable improvements when using the "think" tool:
54% improvement in complex customer service tasks
Significantly better adherence to detailed policies and guidelines
Enhanced consistency across multiple trials of the same task
Improved performance on software engineering benchmarks
Minimal implementation overhead compared to other enhancement techniques
The "think" tool excels where other approaches fall short:
Better than extended thinking for cases requiring complex tool chains
More effective than baseline prompting for policy-heavy scenarios
Especially powerful when paired with optimized prompting
Quick Install
For Claude Desktop
For Cursor
How It Works
The "think" tool implements the exact mechanism described in Anthropic's engineering blog. Unlike extended thinking (which happens before Claude starts responding), the "think" tool allows Claude to pause and reflect during its response generation.
Key mechanism: The tool doesn't perform any external actions or retrieve new information - it simply provides Claude with a dedicated scratchpad to work through reasoning step-by-step, which dramatically improves performance on complex tasks.
When Claude uses the "think" tool:
It pauses to organize thoughts before continuing a complex reasoning chain
It creates a structured approach to multi-step problems
It verifies policy compliance more thoroughly and consistently
It carefully analyzes tool outputs before deciding next steps
It maintains better context awareness across long interactions
When to Use the Think Tool
The "think" tool is especially valuable when:
Working with other MCP tools - Great for analyzing outputs from databases, filesystems, or APIs
Following complex policies - Perfect for customer service, legal, or compliance scenarios
Making sequential decisions - Ideal for workflows where later steps depend on earlier ones
Processing web search results - Helps Claude synthesize information from multiple sources
Solving coding challenges - Improves success rates on software engineering tasks
System Prompt for Optimal Results
Anthropic's research shows that combining the "think" tool with optimized prompting delivers the strongest performance improvements. For best results, add the following optimized system prompt to your Claude interaction:
For Claude Desktop (Custom Instructions)
Go to Settings > Custom Instructions
Add the following system prompt:
For Cursor (Global Rules)
To add the Think Tool as a Cursor Rule:
Open Cursor Settings
Navigate to General > Rules for AI
Add a new rule with the following content:
Manual Installation
If you prefer to run the server locally:
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/PhillipRt/think-mcp-server.git cd think-mcp-serverInstall dependencies:
npm installBuild and run:
npm run build npm startConfigure Claude Desktop manually:
Find or create the configuration file:
macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Add your server configuration:
{ "mcpServers": { "think-tool": { "command": "node", "args": ["path/to/think-mcp-server/dist/server.js"] } } }
License
hybrid server
The server is able to function both locally and remotely, depending on the configuration or use case.
Tools
Official implementation of Anthropic's 'think' tool that provides Claude with a dedicated space for structured reasoning, improving performance by up to 54% on complex tasks requiring multi-step problem solving.
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