Installing MCP Servers via VS Code Extensions

We just merged an exciting new feature into Theia: the ability to install MCP servers via VS Code extensions. This drastically improves the developer experience by eliminating the need to manually edit IDE settings.

Until now, connecting a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to your IDE required custom configuration and some technical legwork. With this new capability, MCP servers can now be installed like any other extension — simple, quick, and user-friendly.

In the video below, we demonstrate:

• ✅ What MCP servers are and how they enable AI tools to interact with external systems (e.g., Git, Jira, web search, databases)
• ✅ How this new approach streamlines installation via VS Code’s extension mechanism
• ✅ How this improves agent-based workflows and supports a cleaner, more unified ecosystem for AI-native tools

🎥 Watch the full demo here:

This marks a significant step toward making AI-powered developer tools more accessible, more modular, and more powerful. We hope this inspires many MCP server publishers to adopt this extension-based approach and make their tools easier to consume.

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