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MCP Onboarding in Claude Desktop

New-hire onboarding plans: one hire at a time or a whole cohort from a role template. You add a hire (name, role, start day), build their task plan with owners (hr, manager or it) and due dates counted from the start, or apply a role template once and let every hire in that role inherit it with the template's version recorded. Mark tasks done or skipped as they happen (skipped is a deliberate dismissal that never counts as done), watch percent complete and overdue per hire, and onboarding_overdue lists everything still outstanding past its due date, most overdue first. Editing a template after applying it never changes a hire who already copied it.

"Ada starts Monday as analytics-engineer, set her up" is one sentence from the same window the role template was drafted in, and onboarding_progress and onboarding_overdue answer what is still outstanding without a tracker being opened. The plan stays local: the server makes no network call on any tool.

What you get in Claude Desktop

You say	Tool
Ada Lovelace starts Monday as analytics-engineer; set her up.	`onboarding_hire_add`
Apply the analytics-engineer template to her plan.	`onboarding_template_apply`
What is still outstanding for Ada, and anything overdue across the team?	`onboarding_progress then onboarding_overdue`

The unit suite is 18 tests, 18 passing, 0 failing (node --test, node v22), covering the template copy and version stamp, the done/skipped split and the overdue ordering; adversarial, concurrency and contract suites sit alongside it.

Install it in Claude Desktop

The file is claude_desktop_config.json, and the key inside it is mcpServers.

Scope	Path
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`
Windows	`%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json`

One click, with no JSON. Download onboarding.mcpb from the latest release and open it. Claude Desktop installs it as an extension and runs it on the Node runtime it ships with, so neither your PATH nor your node version comes into it, and there is no file to edit. Everything below is the manual route, for when you want the entry in the config file itself.

The config block, which needs both strings absolute:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "onboarding": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-servers/servers/onboarding/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

If node came from nvm, asdf or homebrew, use the absolute path that which node prints rather than the bare word, because a stdio server started by this app inherits a limited PATH:

"command": "/Users/you/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin/node"

The node command above wants a built file. From a clone, once:

git clone https://github.com/theluckystrike/mcp-servers.git
cd mcp-servers && npm install
npm run build -w packages/mcp-license -w servers/onboarding

That writes servers/onboarding/dist/index.js, and its absolute path is the one argument the config needs.

The npm packages are not published yet, so the form below returns a 404 today. It is here because it is what the entry becomes the day the publish lands, with nothing else changed:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "onboarding": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@theluckystrike/mcp-onboarding"]
    }
  }
}

Save, then completely quit Claude Desktop and start it again. A window reload is not enough.

Nothing is published to npm yet, so the working install paths are the ones above: the .mcpb bundle from the latest release, a clone and build, or the hosted URL.

No install: the hosted endpoint

The same server runs at https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/onboarding over MCP streamable HTTP, no install. Mint a free token with curl https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/token, or use a Pro key. It has no filesystem, so a file comes back as a one-hour download link.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "onboarding": {
      "url": "https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/onboarding",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <token>" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop notes worth knowing first

Two documented facts decide whether the entry works: every path in claude_desktop_config.json must be absolute, and a stdio server started here inherits only a limited, platform-dependent subset of environment variables. If node came from nvm or homebrew, paste what `which node` prints instead of the bare word. The .mcpb route avoids both: Claude Desktop ships a built-in Node.js environment.

Free: Every tool is free for one hire at a time: add, list, tasks, done, one-hire template apply, progress and overdue. Up to 500 rows on every list on every tier. Pro is $19 once, verified offline.

Questions

Where is claude_desktop_config.json?

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json. There is no published Linux path. Settings, Developer, Edit Config opens the right copy and creates it if it does not exist.

I added it and MCP Onboarding does not appear.

In order: did you fully quit and restart, not just close the window? Is every path absolute? And is the command resolvable, given the limited environment a stdio server inherits here? If node came from nvm, paste what which node prints.

Can I install it without editing JSON?

Yes. An .mcpb bundle, the format renamed from .dxt, opens with Claude and shows an installation dialog. One you built yourself goes in through Settings, Extensions, Advanced settings, Install Extension.

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