12 MCP Servers That Will Make You A More Productive Developer

We’ve all seen how much of a wave MCP is making in the AI space, and how everyone and their dog now has an MCP server that can make the tea and do the washing. But did you know that MCP servers don’t just assist an LLM in production, but they can also help you in your development workflows! Wait, you haven’t heard about an MCP server before? Where have you been hiding? Here’s a one-paragraph catch-up, just in case!

What is an MCP Server?

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. An MCP server is an orchestration layer providing a structured way for an LLM or agent to manage context, tools, and task flow. It’s kind of like middleware for LLMs. You define the tools that an agent can use, and the LLM can choose to use them, like services, when it feels they would provide the assistance needed to complete a specific task. This is why the naming and descriptions of the MCP server are so important!

Just show me the list!

Wow, you’re impatient! Ok, here’s the full list. Which have you used before? Which are new to you? What have we missed out? Let us know on Twitter or Bluesky!

1. Desktop Commander MCP

2. Docker MCP

3. DuckDuckGo MCP

4. Playwright MCP

5. Sequential Thinking MCP

6. Context7 MCP

7. Supabase MCP

8. GitHub MCP

9. Slack MCP

10. Linear MCP

11. Notion MCP

12. Snyk MCP

That’s quite the list. Let’s break them up into categories and give you an insight into what they do and where you can try them out.

System & Automation

1. Desktop Commander MCP

The Desktop Commander MCP server enables LLM agents to control the local OS: shell commands, apps, file management. From a software development perspective, it offers the ability to:

• Create and update big projects 

• Perform code reviews

• Run security audits on your code

• Add test coverage to your codebase

Other features are also available for folks in the DevOps, design, and technical writer roles.

2. Docker MCP

If you use Docker pretty often, this open-source Docker MCP server allows you to perform everyday tasks pretty easily, including:

• Creating and instantiating containers

• Docker Compose stack deployment

• Container logs retrieval

• Container listing and status monitoring

Also, a Kubernetes MCP Server is available if that’s more your flavor.

Web Browsing & Search

Depending on your preferences and needs for web search or even automation, here are a few MCP servers that could be pretty useful.

3. DuckDuckGo MCP

If you value the privacy that DuckDuckGo provides, you’ll be sure to want the same for your LLM agents that require real-time interactions with information on the web. The DuckDuckGo MCP server offers:

• Web Search: Search DuckDuckGo with advanced rate limiting and result formatting

• Content Fetching: Retrieve and parse webpage content with intelligent text extraction

• LLM-Friendly Output: Results formatted specifically for large language model consumption

4. Playwright MCP

Microsoft’s Playwright MCP Server provides access to the popular Playwright tool. You can install it directly into vanilla VS Code, Cursor or Windsurf or of course in Claude Desktop. As you’d expect, you can:

• Test or scrape content cross-browser on Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit

• Test on Windows, Linux, and macOS

• Test headless or headed

Reasoning & Planning

5. Sequential Thinking MCP

The Sequential Thinking MCP Server performs problem-solving through structured thinking. As we’ve become quite used to in recent times, this is another tool that likes to reason out loud before taking actions, such as:

• Break down complex problems into manageable steps

• Revise and refine thoughts as understanding deepens

• Branch into alternative paths of reasoning

• Generate and verify solution hypotheses

6. Context7 MCP

We’ve all been through the frustration of using out-of-date docs and information, right? Context7 pulls the latest up-to-date, version-specific documentation and code examples directly into your prompt for the LLM to use as context. You can use it to:

• Pull in code examples rather than relying on old or incorrect training data samples

• Have a higher chance of the LLM using a real API over one it has hallucinated

• Write prompts naturally with example code 

Backend & App Integrations

7. Supabase MCP

Many of the database providers offer MCP servers now, so be sure to check the one you use. I’ll pick on Supabase MCP Server here, which allows you:

• Query your database directly, just by using natural language in your prompts

• Create, pause and restore Supabase projects

• Debug issues with direct access to your Supabase logs

8. GitHub MCP

Hey, my good friend Bap wrote about this just recently! You should totally read his post to see how the GitHub MCP Server can:

• Automate GitHub workflows and processes, such as issue creation or PR code reviews

• Extract and analyze data from GitHub repositories.

9. Slack MCP

As a collaboration tool, the Slack MCP Server brings collaboration into AI workflows and even into our IDE. With this MCP Server, it feels like you have very basic Slack API access, allowing you to:

• List channels, and get channel history

• Post messages or reply to threads, and add reactions

• Get users and user profile information

10. Linear MCP

If you’re one of the cool kids using Linear to track your issues and manage your projects, consider using a Linear MCP Server to:

• Create, update or search through Linear issues

• Get issues for a particular user

• Add a comment to a Linear issue

11. Notion MCP

Well, if you’re a cool kid using Linear, you’re almost certainly using Notion as well! The official Notion MCP Server essentially exposes the Notion API, allowing you to:

• Create pages, update content

• Add comments to existing pages and content

• Perform Notion searches and query Notion databases

Security

12. Snyk MCP

Finally, I can’t write a list like this and not mention the Snyk MCP Server, can I? As we write code, we want it to be secure! With this MCP server, we can make sure of this by:

• Trigger CLI security scans for code, dependencies, or configurations in your codebase

• Obtain Snyk security findings directly in your MCP-enabled tool or environment.

Wrapping up

To summarise, there’s an MCP server for everything, and you shouldn’t just add them all, but recognise how you can empower yourself within your LLM prompts to make sure you’re making life easier for yourself.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the MCP Servers I chose. Did I miss a killer MCP Service that you can’t live without? Let me know!