You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
{{ message }}
Repository navigation
Unable to use the tool directly in Claude Desktop on Windows 11 #83
Hi, I'm trying to use colab-mcp within Claude Desktop, but the only tool it shows is open_colab_browser_connection. Even after a Colab tab was opened and connected with the MCP server, the tool set didn't update itself; only the mentioned tool showed up.
Hi @DungMinhDao, this is the "invisible tools" issue — same root cause as #54 and #67. Upstream registers the 4 notebook tools (add_code_cell, execute_cell, add_text_cell, update_cell) only AFTER the WebSocket
connects to your Colab tab, and announces them via the notifications/tools/list_changed MCP message.
Claude Desktop (along with OpenAI Codex, Kiro IDE, and some Claude Code
versions) doesn't currently re-fetch the tool list when it receives that
notification, so it keeps the snapshot it took at startup — which only
contains open_colab_browser_connection. Even after the browser connects
successfully, the other tools never appear in your client.
My fork fixes this by pre-registering all 5 tools directly on the FastMCP
server at startup. When the browser isn't connected yet, the notebook
tools return a "not connected" stub message; once you call open_colab_browser_connection, calls are transparently forwarded to the
real browser-side MCP. From the client's perspective the tool set never
changes, so it doesn't need to support tools/list_changed.
Restart Claude Desktop. All 5 tools (open_colab_browser_connection,
add_code_cell, add_text_cell, execute_cell, update_cell) should
appear immediately, even before you've opened a Colab tab. The fork also
ships change_runtime for programmatic GPU assignment (requires a
one-time OAuth setup — see the README) and a stale-server cleanup tool
that fixes the related "Disconnected from the local Colab MCP server"
issue from #84.
Works for me on Windows 11 + Claude Code; let me know how it goes on
Claude Desktop.
Activity
SebastianGilPinzon commentedon May 14, 2026
Hi @DungMinhDao, this is the "invisible tools" issue — same root cause as
#54 and #67. Upstream registers the 4 notebook tools (
add_code_cell,execute_cell,add_text_cell,update_cell) only AFTER the WebSocketconnects to your Colab tab, and announces them via the
notifications/tools/list_changedMCP message.Claude Desktop (along with OpenAI Codex, Kiro IDE, and some Claude Code
versions) doesn't currently re-fetch the tool list when it receives that
notification, so it keeps the snapshot it took at startup — which only
contains
open_colab_browser_connection. Even after the browser connectssuccessfully, the other tools never appear in your client.
My fork fixes this by pre-registering all 5 tools directly on the FastMCP
server at startup. When the browser isn't connected yet, the notebook
tools return a "not connected" stub message; once you call
open_colab_browser_connection, calls are transparently forwarded to thereal browser-side MCP. From the client's perspective the tool set never
changes, so it doesn't need to support
tools/list_changed.Fork: https://github.com/SebastianGilPinzon/colab-mcp
To try it, replace the upstream
command/argsin your Claude Desktopconfig with:
{ "mcpServers": { "colab-mcp": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["git+https://github.com/SebastianGilPinzon/colab-mcp"], "timeout": 30000 } } }Restart Claude Desktop. All 5 tools (open_colab_browser_connection,
add_code_cell, add_text_cell, execute_cell, update_cell) should
appear immediately, even before you've opened a Colab tab. The fork also
ships change_runtime for programmatic GPU assignment (requires a
one-time OAuth setup — see the README) and a stale-server cleanup tool
that fixes the related "Disconnected from the local Colab MCP server"
issue from #84.
Works for me on Windows 11 + Claude Code; let me know how it goes on
Claude Desktop.
plooolp commentedon Jul 26, 2026
{
"mcpServers": {
"colab-mcp": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["git+https://github.com/SebastianGilPinzon/colab-mcp"],
"timeout": 30000
}
}
}