Set up Sequential Thinking MCP in VS Code

VS Code reads MCP server configuration from the following file:

Create this file if it does not already exist. For VS Code, this is inside your workspace .vscode/settings.json file under the mcp section.

Add the following to your VS Code config file:

{
  "servers": {
    "sequential-thinking-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking"
      ]
    }
  }
}

No environment variables needed. Sequential Thinking MCP works out of the box without any API keys or tokens.

Restart VS Code. Sequential Thinking MCP should appear in your MCP server list with 1 tool available.

This server adds approximately 515 tokens to your context window for tool definitions.