Sanity MCP Server

Sanity MCP Server

Transform your content operations with AI-powered tools for Sanity. Create, manage, and explore your content through natural language conversations in your favorite AI-enabled editor.

Sanity MCP Server implements the Model Context Protocol to connect your Sanity projects with AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code. It enables AI models to understand your content structure and perform operations through natural language instructions.

✨ Key Features

• 🤖 Content Intelligence: Let AI explore and understand your content library
• 🔄 Content Operations: Automate tasks through natural language instructions
• 📊 Schema-Aware: AI respects your content structure and validation rules
• 🚀 Release Management: Plan and organize content releases effortlessly
• 🔍 Semantic Search: Find content based on meaning, not just keywords

Table of Contents

• 🔌 Quickstart
  • Remote server (preferred)
  • Local server prerequisites
  • Add configuration for the Sanity MCP server
• 🛠️ Available Tools
• ⚙️ Configuration
  • 🔑 API Tokens and Permissions
    • Generate API Tokens
    • Required Permissions
    • Dataset Access
    • Security Best Practices
  • 👥 User Roles
• 📦 Node.js Environment Setup
  • 🛠 Quick Setup for Node Version Manager Users
  • 🤔 Why is this needed?
  • 🔍 Troubleshooting
• 💻 Development
  • Debugging

🔌 Quickstart

Remote server (preferred)

This README details how to run the MCP server locally. For a more production-ready setup, we recommend using the hosted remote server.

See Sanity MCP Server in the documentation for install instructions in Claude Code, Cursor and more.

Local server prerequisites

Before you can use the MCP server, you need to:

1. Deploy your Sanity Studio with schema manifestThe MCP server needs access to your content structure to work effectively. Deploy your schema manifest using one of these approaches:
   cd /path/to/studio npm update sanity npx sanity schema deploy
   When running in CI environments without Sanity login, you'll need to provide an auth token:
   SANITY_AUTH_TOKEN=<token> sanity schema deploy

2. Get your API credentials
   • Project ID
   • Dataset name
   • API token with appropriate permissions

This MCP server can be used with any application that supports the Model Context Protocol. Here are some popular examples:

• Claude Desktop
• Cursor IDE
• Visual Studio Code
• Custom MCP-compatible applications

Add configuration for the Sanity MCP server

To use the Sanity MCP server, add the following configuration to your application's MCP settings:

For a complete list of all required and optional environment variables, see the Configuration section.

The exact location of this configuration will depend on your application:

You don't get it to work? See the section on Node.js configuration.

🛠️ Available Tools

Context & Setup

• get_initial_context – IMPORTANT: Must be called before using any other tools to initialize context and get usage instructions.
• get_sanity_config – Retrieves current Sanity configuration (projectId, dataset, apiVersion, etc.)

Document Operations

• create_document – Create a new document with AI-generated content based on instructions
• update_document – Update an existing document with AI-generated content based on instructions
• patch_document - Apply direct patch operations to modify specific parts of a document without using AI generation
• transform_document – Transform document content while preserving formatting and structure, ideal for text replacements and style corrections
• translate_document – Translate document content to another language while preserving formatting and structure
• query_documents – Execute GROQ queries to search for and retrieve content
• publish_document – Publish a draft document to make it live
• unpublish_document – Unpublish a published document (moves it back to drafts)
• version_replace_document – Replace the contents of a document version with contents from another document
• version_discard_document –Discard a document version from a release (removes it from the release)
• version_unpublish_document – Mark a document to be unpublished when the release is run
• delete_document – Permanently delete a document and all its drafts

Release Management

• list_releases – List content releases, optionally filtered by state
• create_release – Create a new content release
• edit_release – Update metadata for an existing release
• schedule_release – Schedule a release to publish at a specific time
• publish_release – Publish a release immediately
• archive_release – Archive a release that is no longer active
• unarchive_release – Restore an archived release
• unschedule_release – Remove a previously set schedule from a release
• delete_release – Delete a release

Version Management

• create_version – Create a version of a document for a specific release
• discard_version – Delete a specific version document from a release
• mark_for_unpublish – Mark a document to be unpublished when a specific release is published

Dataset Management

• list_datasets – List all datasets in the project
• create_dataset – Create a new dataset
• update_dataset – Modify dataset settings

Schema Information

• get_schema – Get schema details, either full schema or for a specific type
• list_workspace_schemas – Get a list of all available workspace schema names

GROQ Support

• get_groq_specification – Get the GROQ language specification summary

Embeddings & Semantic Search

• list_embeddings_indices – List all available embeddings indices
• semantic_search – Perform semantic search on an embeddings index

Project Information

• list_projects – List all Sanity projects associated with your account
• get_project_studios – Get studio applications linked to a specific project

⚙️ Configuration

The server takes the following environment variables:

🔑 API Tokens and Permissions

The MCP server requires appropriate API tokens and permissions to function correctly. Here's what you need to know:

Generate API Tokens

From the terminal:

Or from Manage:

• Run npx sanity manage from your Studio root
• In your project's management console: Settings > API > Tokens
• Click "Add new token"
• Create a dedicated token for your MCP server usage (e.g. mcp-server)
• Store the token securely - it's only shown once!

Required Permissions

The token needs appropriate permissions based on your usage

• For read operations: viewer role is sufficient
• For mutations: editor or developer role recommended
• For project changes (like managing datasets): administrator role may be needed

Dataset Access

• Public datasets: Content is readable by unauthenticated users
• Private datasets: Require proper token authentication
• Draft and versioned content: Only accessible to authenticated users with appropriate permissions

Security Best Practices

• Use separate tokens for different environments (development, staging, production)
• Never commit tokens to version control
• Consider using environment variables for token management
• Regularly rotate tokens for security

👥 User Roles

The server supports two user roles:

• developer: Access to all tools
• editor: Content-focused tools without project administration

📦 Node.js Environment Setup

🛠 Quick Setup for Node Version Manager Users

1. First, activate your preferred Node.js version:
   # Using nvm nvm use 20 # or your preferred version # Using mise mise use node@20 # Using fnm fnm use 20
2. Then, create the necessary symlinks (choose your OS):On macOS/Linux:
   sudo ln -sf "$(which node)" /usr/local/bin/node && sudo ln -sf "$(which npx)" /usr/local/bin/npx

   Note

   While using sudo generally requires caution, it's safe in this context because:

   • We're only creating symlinks to your existing Node.js binaries
   • The target directory (/usr/local/bin) is a standard system location for user-installed programs
   • The symlinks only point to binaries you've already installed and trust
   • You can easily remove these symlinks later with sudo rm
   On Windows (PowerShell as Administrator):
   New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" -Target (Get-Command node).Source -Force New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "C:\Program Files\nodejs\npx.cmd" -Target (Get-Command npx).Source -Force
3. Verify the setup:
   # Should show your chosen Node version /usr/local/bin/node --version # macOS/Linux "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" --version # Windows

🤔 Why is this needed?

MCP servers are launched by calling node and npx binaries directly. When using Node version managers, these binaries are managed in isolated environments that aren't automatically accessible to system applications. The symlinks above create a bridge between your version manager and the system paths that MCP servers use.

🔍 Troubleshooting

If you switch Node versions often:

• Remember to update your symlinks when changing Node versions
• You can create a shell alias or script to automate this:
  # Example alias for your .bashrc or .zshrc alias update-node-symlinks='sudo ln -sf "$(which node)" /usr/local/bin/node && sudo ln -sf "$(which npx)" /usr/local/bin/npx'

To remove the symlinks later:

💻 Development

Install dependencies:

Build and run in development mode:

Build the server:

Run the built server:

Debugging

For debugging, you can use the MCP inspector:

This will provide a web interface for inspecting and testing the available tools.