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Using with Claude Science

Claude Science uses a stricter sandbox policy that prevents reading from and writing to the home directory (~) by default. This causes the MCP-for-Stata server to fail immediately on startup when configured in the usual way:

Couldn't load tools: MCP error -32000: Connection closed
--- stderr ---
Traceback ...
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

This error is not caused by MCP-for-Stata itself; it happens because the Claude Science sandbox cannot find the configured executable. Two solutions are described below.

Complete Setup

1. Install stata-mcp

uv tool install stata-mcp

2. Allowlist the sandbox paths

Run the following command to write the sandbox allowlist to ~/.claude-science/config.toml. The script checks whether a [sandbox] block already exists before appending, so it will not create duplicate entries.

mkdir -p ~/.claude-science
CONFIG_FILE="$HOME/.claude-science/config.toml"

if ! grep -q '^\[sandbox\]' "$CONFIG_FILE" 2>/dev/null; then
    cat >> "$CONFIG_FILE" <<'EOF'

[sandbox]
user_write_paths = [
  "$HOME/.local/bin",
  "$HOME/.local/share/uv/tools/stata-mcp",
]
EOF
    echo "Wrote $CONFIG_FILE"
else
    echo "[sandbox] already exists; please verify user_write_paths includes:"
    echo "  $HOME/.local/bin"
    echo "  $HOME/.local/share/uv/tools/stata-mcp"
fi

3. Add the MCP server in Claude Science

Open the Claude Science MCP configuration UI and enter:

  • Name: Stata-MCP
  • Command: ~/.local/bin/stata-mcp

Save and restart Claude Science. The MCP-for-Stata tools should now load correctly.

Option 1: Allowlist the uv tool installation paths

If you installed with uv tool install stata-mcp, the executable and its data are placed at:

  • ~/.local/bin/stata-mcp
  • ~/.local/share/uv/tools/stata-mcp

You must explicitly allow both paths in the Claude Science sandbox so they are readable and writable.

Add the following to ~/.claude-science/config.toml:

[sandbox]
user_write_paths = [
  "~/.local/bin",
  "~/.local/share/uv/tools/stata-mcp",
]

Save and restart Claude Science, then try loading the MCP-for-Stata tools again.

Option 2: Install MCP-for-Stata outside the home directory

If you prefer not to allowlist home-directory paths, you can install MCP-for-Stata in a location the sandbox already permits, such as the project directory or a dedicated tools directory. Detailed steps will be added later.