MCP Chat with File System Access

MCP Chat is a command-line interface application that enables interactive chat capabilities with AI models through the Anthropic API. The application supports file system operations with controlled access to specified directories, video conversion capabilities, and extensible tool integrations via the MCP (Model Control Protocol) architecture.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+

• Anthropic API Key

• FFmpeg (for video conversion features)

Related MCP server: mcp-file-roots-demo

Setup

You must have FFmpeg already installed to convert a video file. To install FFmpeg on MacOS run:

brew install ffmpeg

Step 1: Configure the environment variables

1. Copy the .env.example file to create a new .env file:

cp .env.example .env

2. Edit the .env file and set your environment variables:

CLAUDE_MODEL="claude-sonnet-4-0"  # Or your preferred Claude model
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=""  # Enter your Anthropic API secret key

Step 2: Install dependencies

Setup with uv

uv is a fast Python package installer and resolver.

1. Install uv, if not already installed:

pip install uv

2. Install dependencies:

uv sync

3. Run the project

When running the project, you must specify one or more root directories that the MCP server will have access to. Only files and directories within these roots can be accessed by the server.

uv run main.py <root1> [root2] [root3] ...

Examples:

# Single directory
uv run main.py /path/to/videos

# Multiple directories
uv run main.py /home/user/videos /mnt/storage/media ~/Documents

# Current directory
uv run main.py .

Features

File System Access

The server can only access files and directories within the specified root paths. This provides security by limiting file system access to approved locations.

Available Tools

• list_roots: List all accessible root directories

• read_dir: Read contents of a directory (must be within a root)

• convert_video: Convert MP4 videos to other formats (avi, mov, webm, mkv, gif)

Video Conversion

The video conversion tool uses FFmpeg to convert MP4 files to various formats:

• Standard video formats: AVI, MOV, WebM, MKV

• GIF conversion with optimized settings

• Medium quality preset for balanced file size and quality