Set up Filesystem MCP in VS Code
Read, write, search, and manage files on your local filesystem with secure directory-scoped access for your AI editor.
1
Locate the config file
VS Code reads MCP server configuration from the following file:
.vscode/settings.json → mcp sectionCreate this file if it does not already exist. For VS Code, this is inside your workspace .vscode/settings.json file under the mcp section.
2
Add the configuration
Add the following to your VS Code config file:
json
{
"servers": {
"filesystem-mcp": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
"/path/to/allowed/directory"
]
}
}
}3
Set up environment variables
No environment variables needed. Filesystem MCP works out of the box without any API keys or tokens.
4
Verify it works
Restart VS Code. Filesystem MCP should appear in your MCP server list with 11 tools available.
This server adds approximately 5,665 tokens to your context window for tool definitions.