Error on setting up MCP on Claude desktop

[drapisarda]

Hallo there,
I write to report a bug in the setting up of MCP on Claude Desktop.
I'm changing the config as described in the readme

{
  "globalShortcut": "",
  "mcpServers": {
    "directus": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@directus/content-mcp@latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "DIRECTUS_URL": "https://admin.mydomain.io",
        "DIRECTUS_TOKEN": "myTokenHere",
      }
    }
  }
}

but I'm getting an error and this is what the error log reports

2025-05-30T15:23:31.820Z [directus] [info] Initializing server...
2025-05-30T15:23:31.997Z [directus] [info] Server started and connected successfully
2025-05-30T15:23:32.001Z [directus] [info] Message from client: {"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"claude-ai","version":"0.1.0"}},"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0}
npx: installed 125 in 4.815s
/Users/myuser/.npm/_npx/4460/lib/node_modules/@directus/content-mcp/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/nodes/HTMLInputElement-impl.js:587
      this[filesSymbol] ||= FileList.createImpl(this._globalObject);
                        ^^^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token '||='
    at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:979:16)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1027:27)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1092:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:928:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:769:14)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:952:19)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:88:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/myuser/.npm/_npx/4460/lib/node_modules/@directus/content-mcp/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/generated/HTMLInputElement.js:1924:14)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1063:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1092:10)
2025-05-30T15:23:38.132Z [directus] [info] Server transport closed
2025-05-30T15:23:38.132Z [directus] [info] Client transport closed
2025-05-30T15:23:38.133Z [directus] [info] Server transport closed unexpectedly, this is likely due to the process exiting early. If you are developing this MCP server you can add output to stderr (i.e. `console.error('...')` in JavaScript, `print('...', file=sys.stderr)` in python) and it will appear in this log.
2025-05-30T15:23:38.133Z [directus] [error] Server disconnected. For troubleshooting guidance, please visit our [debugging documentation](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/tools/debugging) {"context":"connection"}
2025-05-30T15:23:38.133Z [directus] [info] Client transport closed

It seems to be related to jsdom, but I can't tell how to solve.

The same goes for email/pass access.

[JoshTheDerf]

What Node version are you using?

[remihuigen]

I'm facing a pretty similar issue. See logs below

Error logs

2025-07-08T15:26:32.714Z [directus] [info] Initializing server... { metadata: undefined }
2025-07-08T15:26:32.725Z [directus] [info] Using MCP server command: /Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v14.17.0/bin/npx with args and path: {
  metadata: {
    args: [ '@directus/content-mcp@latest', [length]: 1 ],
    paths: [
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v14.17.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v16.19.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v16.19.1/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v16.20.2/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v18.18.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v18.19.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v18.19.1/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v20.11.1/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v20.12.1/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v20.9.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v22.12.0/bin',
      '/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin',
      '/usr/local/bin',
      '/opt/homebrew/bin',
      '/usr/bin',
      '/usr/bin',
      '/bin',
      '/usr/sbin',
      '/sbin',
      '/usr/local/bin',
      [length]: 20
    ]
  }
} %o
2025-07-08T15:26:32.727Z [directus] [info] Server started and connected successfully { metadata: undefined }
2025-07-08T15:26:32.727Z [directus] [info] Message from client: {"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"claude-ai","version":"0.1.0"}},"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0} { metadata: undefined }
npx: installed 126 in 11.659s
/Users/remihuigen/.npm/_npx/61159/lib/node_modules/@directus/content-mcp/node_modules/cssstyle/lib/CSSStyleDeclaration.js:495
      part ||= "";
           ^^^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token '||='
    at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:984:16)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1032:27)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1097:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:933:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:774:14)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:957:19)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:88:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/remihuigen/.npm/_npx/61159/lib/node_modules/@directus/content-mcp/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/browser/Window.js:4:33)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1068:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1097:10)

Seems like in my case it's trying to use node v14.17.0 (which is weird, since nvm has v22.14.0 as a default).

Tried multiple things to resolve the issue. Eventually got it working by

1. Installing @directus/content-mcp globally
2. Updating the Claude config file to

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "directus": {
            "command": "/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin/node",
            "args": [
                "/Users/remihuigen/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/lib/node_modules/@directus/content-mcp/dist/index.js"
            ],
            "env": {
                "DIRECTUS_URL": "DIRECTUS_URL",
                "DIRECTUS_TOKEN": "DIRECTUS_TOKEN"
            }
        }
    }
}

[drapisarda]

What Node version are you using?

v22.14.0

[bryantgillespie]

This is an issue we've encountered internally as well when using Claude Desktop.

Whenever you're using NVM, it will pick up on the first version or the oldest version of Node that you have installed instead of what you have set as the default.

The fix we've been using internally is just to remove all the previous versions of Node up to v22.