MSBuild MCP Server

A lightweight MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for automating MSBuild projects and solutions builds. It dynamically locates MSBuild and provides customizable build configuration options.

Features

• Dynamic MSBuild Discovery: Automatically detects the MSBuild executable, ensuring compatibility with various Visual Studio installations.

• Customizable Build Settings: Easily configure build options such as configuration, platform, verbosity level, parallel build CPU count, NuGet restore, and additional command-line arguments through LLM-driven tool invocation.

• Clear Error Reporting: Filters and presents concise, relevant error messages upon build failures.

• MCP Client Compatibility: Supports seamless integration with popular MCP clients such as VSCode, Cursor, Windsurf, and more. Configuration snippets for these clients are provided in the documentation.

• Cross-Language Support: Supports MSBuild-compatible projects, including .sln, .csproj, and .vcxproj files, enabling builds for languages like C#, C++, and more across Windows platforms.

Related MCP server: XcodeMCP

Prerequisites

Ensure the following prerequisites are installed:

• Python 3.11 or higher

• Visual Studio or Visual Studio Build Tools (for MSBuild)

• uv (recommended)

Registering the MCP Server

Ensure uv is installed.

In the MCP settings of your AI tools (e.g., Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, etc.), add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "msbuild-mcp-server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "msbuild-mcp-server@latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Place this snippet in your client configuration file:

• VSCode: .vscode/mcp.json

• Cursor: ~/.cursor/mcp.json or <project-root>/.cursor/mcp.json

• Windsurf: ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

Restart your tool to ensure that the msbuild-mcp-server and its provided tools are properly registered.

Agent Prompt Examples

AI agents can trigger builds using natural language like:

• Basic Project Build

  "Build this solution at C:/Path/To/Project.sln using Release|x64."

• Unreal Engine Build

  "Build the solution located at C:/Projects/MyGame/MyGame.sln using Development Editor|Win64."

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.