Bench

Bench is a native macOS MCP server that gives AI tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf visibility into connected USB hardware. It identifies devices, finds serial ports, and recognizes common maker boards — so your AI assistant knows what's on your bench.

No API keys. No drivers. One command to install.

What it does

22 tools across four categories:

Discovery

Monitoring

Management

Serial Communication

Features

• Device classification — automatically categorizes devices as storage, input, hub, video, serial adapter, microcontroller, or debugger

• Serial port detection — maps USB devices to their /dev/cu.* serial ports (the #1 question makers ask)

• 83+ known boards — recognizes Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ESP32, Adafruit, SparkFun, Teensy, STM32, and common USB-serial chips

• Storage info — mount points, capacity, and free space for USB drives

• USB monitoring — event tracking, state snapshots, diagnostic log queries, and power analysis

• Firmware flashing — flash ESP32, STM32, Arduino AVR, and RP2040 boards directly

• HID interaction — send and receive reports from Stream Decks, macro pads, and custom HID devices

• Serial communication — open, read, write, and monitor serial ports with configurable baud rate, data bits, parity, and stop bits

Requirements

• macOS 14+ (Sonoma or later) on Apple Silicon

• An MCP-compatible AI tool (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.)

• For building from source: Xcode 16.3+ / Swift 6.1+

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install seayniclabs/tap/bench

From source

git clone https://github.com/seayniclabs/bench.git
cd bench
swift build -c release
codesign --force --sign - --entitlements Sources/Bench/Bench.entitlements .build/release/Bench

The binary is at .build/release/Bench.

Add to Claude Code

claude mcp add bench -- $(which bench)

Or add manually to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bench": {
      "command": "/path/to/bench",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Usage

Once connected, just talk to your AI tool:

• "What USB devices are connected?"

• "What port is my Arduino on?"

• "Identify the device on /dev/cu.usbserial-2120"

• "Eject the Samsung T7"

• "Show me all storage devices"

• "Open a serial connection to /dev/cu.usbserial-2120 at 9600 baud"

• "Monitor the serial output from my ESP32 for 10 seconds"

How it works

Bench uses Apple's IOKit framework to enumerate USB devices natively on macOS. It enriches results with serial port detection (/dev/cu.* scanning), storage info (diskutil), and a built-in database of known maker boards. It communicates with AI tools over stdio using the Model Context Protocol (JSON-RPC).

AI Tool  --stdio/JSON-RPC-->  Bench  --IOKit-->  USB Device Tree
                                     --diskutil-->  Storage Info
                                     --/dev/cu.*-->  Serial Ports
                                     --DeviceDB-->  Board Recognition

No special permissions needed. IOKit USB enumeration works without entitlements from a CLI binary.

Building

swift build             # debug build
swift build -c release  # release build
swift test              # run tests

Bench requires Swift 6.1+ and targets macOS 14+.

License

MIT

Credits

Built by Seaynic Labs.