Containerized BioMCP with Claude Desktop for Mac: Step-by-Step Tutorial¶
This tutorial will guide you through setting up BioMCP as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Claude Desktop for Mac, while having biomcp fully dockerized.
Prerequisites¶
- Claude Desktop: Download from Anthropic, or if you have brew, simply
brew install --cask claude
- Docker: Download from Docker.com or, again if you have brew, simply
brew install --cask docker
Steps¶
Create a file called Dockerfile
in a directory of your choice with this content
FROM python:3.13-slim AS production
RUN apt-get update && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
WORKDIR /app
RUN pip install biomcp-python
EXPOSE 8000
CMD ["biomcp","run"]
then in the same directory run the command
docker build -t biomcp .
Finally, enter the directory of Claude Desktop configs
cd "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Claude/"
and edit the file claude_desktop_config.json
adding the biomcp server
{
"mcpServers": {
"biomcp": {
"command": "docker",
"args": [
"run",
"-i",
"--rm",
"biomcp:latest"],
"env": {}
}
}
}
That's it; you should now have biomcp, fully containerized, available in your Macos Claude Desktop Application