MCP server for AI chat
	Perform operations in NextFEM Designer VIA AI chat

This guide will show you how to implement a local MCP server for Anthropic Claude AI.
MCP server is a simple interface that allows you to connect your local NextFEM Designer installation to Claude AI.

Installation

Install Claude Desktop. Python is required on the system.

NextFEM Designer is supposed to be already installed on your system. Be sure to activate the REST server at startup of the program, by activating the option depicted below.

Configuration of MCP Server

MCP server consists in a Python script exposing the tools to be connected with AI. This is supplied by your public repository MCPserver.

1. Clone the repo by downloading ZIP or with:

git pull https://github.com/NextFEM/MCPserver.git

2. From the command shell, navigate to the newly created folder. To install required packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3.Configure Claude Desktop to load MCP server at startup. Open folder:

%appdata%\Claude

and double-click claude_desktop_config.json to edit it.

If it is not existing, please do not create it by hand, but, from inside Claude Desktop, select File / Settings / Developers / Change configuration button.

Then change the content of the file to:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "NextFEM": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "C:\\myPath\\mcpServer.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Remember to change myPath with the MCP server path.

That’s all. Restart NextFEM Designer and Claude Desktop. You’ll see a hammer with the number of NextFEM Designer tools avaialble in Claude.

See it in action

Notes

• Use clear and circumstantiated prompts – e.g. always refer at least once to NextFEM Designer in order to force the AI to use MCP tools
• Be aware that only a few selected commands in NextFEM API are avaialble as a tool. Avoid to make requests not covered by the commands or update the list of MCP tools on the base of your needs.