Allows access to the source code repository and project documentation through GitHub.
Provides direct clipboard integration for Linux systems, allowing Claude to access clipboard content through platform-specific implementation.
Offers native clipboard support for macOS, enabling Claude to read clipboard content including text and images on Apple systems.
Provides package distribution through NPM, allowing easy installation with the @standardbeagle/mcp-clip package.
MCP Clipboard Server
A high-performance, lock-free Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides clipboard access for AI assistants. Specifically designed to solve the VSCode + WSL2 image clipboard limitation when using Claude.
🎯 Problem Solved
VSCode + WSL2 + Claude Image Clipboard Issue: When running Claude in VSCode on Windows with WSL2, pasting images from the clipboard doesn't work due to the sandboxed environment. This MCP server provides a bridge to access Windows clipboard content (including images) from within the WSL2 environment.
✨ Features
- 🔒 Lock-free concurrent design - High performance with zero race conditions
- 🖼️ Image clipboard support - PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP detection and handling
- 🛡️ WSL2 compatibility - Seamless Windows clipboard access from WSL2
- 📁 Large content handling - Automatic temp file creation for content >25KB
- 🔄 Real-time monitoring - Clipboard change notifications
- 🧹 Smart cleanup - TTL-based temp file management
- 🚀 Race condition free - Comprehensive atomic operations and CAS loops
- 🔍 Rich debugging - Detailed error context and optional debug logging
🚀 Quick Start
NPM Installation (Recommended)
Go Installation
Manual Installation
📋 Claude Desktop Configuration
Add to your Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json
:
Config file locations:
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
- Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
- Linux:
~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
🔧 VSCode + WSL2 Setup
1. Install in WSL2
2. Configure Claude Code Extension
Add to your VSCode settings or workspace .vscode/settings.json
:
3. WSL2 PowerShell Access
Ensure PowerShell is accessible from WSL2:
🛠️ Available Tools
read_clipboard
Reads current clipboard content with automatic format detection.
Example usage in Claude:
"Read my clipboard and analyze the content"
Supported formats:
- Plain text
- Images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP)
- Binary data (base64 encoded)
Large content handling:
- Content >25KB automatically saved to temp files
- Images always saved as files with proper extensions
- File paths provided for external access
📊 Resource Notifications
The server sends real-time notifications when clipboard content changes:
This allows Claude to proactively know when new content is available without polling.
⚙️ Configuration
Environment Variables
MCP_DEBUG=1
- Enable detailed debug loggingMCP_CLEANUP_TTL=2h
- Set temp file cleanup TTL (default: 1h)
Debug Mode
Shows detailed information about:
- Clipboard monitoring status
- Temp file creation and cleanup
- WSL2 PowerShell integration
- Race condition fallbacks (extremely rare)
🧪 Testing
Test Installation
Development Testing
🏗️ Architecture
Lock-Free Design
- Atomic operations for all shared state
- Compare-and-swap loops with retry limits
- Zero mutexes in hot paths
- Race-condition free under all loads
Concurrency Safety
- Atomic clipboard state updates
- Thread-safe session file tracking
- Graceful shutdown with cleanup
- TOCTOU-safe temp file creation
Platform Integration
- WSL2: PowerShell bridge for Windows clipboard
- Linux: Direct clipboard integration via atotto/clipboard
- macOS: Native clipboard support
- Windows: Native clipboard support
🔧 Troubleshooting
WSL2 Issues
PowerShell not found:
Permission denied:
Clipboard empty in WSL2:
General Issues
MCP connection failed:
- Verify
mcp-clip
is in your PATH - Check Claude Desktop config JSON syntax
- Restart Claude Desktop after config changes
Large images not working:
- Check available disk space in temp directory
- Verify temp directory permissions
- Enable debug mode:
MCP_DEBUG=1
Performance issues:
- Monitor with debug mode enabled
- Check for antivirus interference
- Verify WSL2 resource allocation
📝 Development
Building from Source
Running Tests
Contributing
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch
- Run tests:
go test -race -v ./...
- Submit a pull request
📄 License
MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.
🙏 Acknowledgments
- Model Context Protocol by Anthropic
- atotto/clipboard for cross-platform clipboard access
- mcp-go for Go MCP implementation
🔗 Links
This server cannot be installed
local-only server
The server can only run on the client's local machine because it depends on local resources.
A high-performance server that provides clipboard access for AI assistants, specifically designed to solve the VSCode + WSL2 image clipboard limitation when using Claude.
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