Readonly Filesystem MCP Server

Node.js server implementing Model Context Protocol (MCP) for readonly filesystem operations. A clone from modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem.

Features

Read files
List directories
Search files
Get file metadata

Note: The server will only allow operations within directories specified via args.

API

Resources

file://system: File system operations interface

Tools

read_file
- Read complete contents of a file
- Input: path (string)
- Reads complete file contents with UTF-8 encoding
read_multiple_files
- Read multiple files simultaneously
- Input: paths (string[])
- Failed reads won't stop the entire operation
list_directory
- List directory contents with [FILE] or [DIR] prefixes
- Input: path (string)
search_files
- Recursively search for files/directories
- Inputs:
  - path (string): Starting directory
  - pattern (string): Search pattern
  - excludePatterns (string[]): Exclude any patterns. Glob formats are supported.
- Case-insensitive matching
- Returns full paths to matches
get_file_info
- Get detailed file/directory metadata
- Input: path (string)
- Returns:
  - Size
  - Creation time
  - Modified time
  - Access time
  - Type (file/directory)
  - Permissions
list_allowed_directories
- List all directories the server is allowed to access
- No input required
- Returns:
  - Directories that this server can read/write from

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

Note: you can provide sandboxed directories to the server by mounting them to /projects. Adding the ro flag will make the directory readonly by the server.

NPX

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "/Users/username/Desktop",
        "/path/to/other/allowed/dir"
      ]
    }
  }
}

License

This MCP server is licensed under the MIT License. This means you are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the MIT License. For more details, please see the LICENSE file in the project repository.