pyside6-mcp

Playwright-style MCP server for PySide6 apps — lets Claude see, control, and debug your Python desktop GUI without modifying your app's source code.

Claude → MCP tools → pyside6-mcp server → HTTP bridge → PySide6 app

Features

Screenshot any window or widget
Inspect the full widget tree (class, name, geometry, text, state)
Click, type, scroll, press keys — full interaction
Find widgets by class, objectName, or text content
Read Python logs captured from the app
Run Python inside the app process for advanced inspection
Launch and stop the app directly from Claude

Zero changes to your app's source code required.

Requirements

Python 3.11+
PySide6 6.6+
uv (recommended)
Windows (tested), Linux/macOS (should work)

Installation

Option 1 — Claude Code Plugin (MCP + skill in one command)

claude plugin install github:com55/pyside6-mcp

Installs the MCP server and the companion skill automatically.

Option 2 — MCP server only

# user: available in every project (recommended for a debug tool)
claude mcp add -s user pyside6 -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/com55/pyside6-mcp pyside6-mcp

# project: only for the current project (saved to .mcp.json, can be committed)
claude mcp add -s project pyside6 -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/com55/pyside6-mcp pyside6-mcp

# local: only for the current project, not committed (default scope)
claude mcp add pyside6 -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/com55/pyside6-mcp pyside6-mcp

Optionally set a custom port with -e:

claude mcp add -s user -e PYSIDE6_MCP_PORT=7890 pyside6 -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/com55/pyside6-mcp pyside6-mcp

Target app setup (required for both options)

Install pyside6-mcp into the app's venv so the bridge module is importable:

cd your-pyside6-project
uv add --dev "pyside6-mcp @ git+https://github.com/com55/pyside6-mcp"

Usage

Launch your app through the bridge (no source changes needed)

# Instead of: python main.py
python -m pyside6_mcp main.py

# With uv
uv run python -m pyside6_mcp main.py

The bridge starts automatically on http://127.0.0.1:7890.

Or: embed the bridge (optional, for always-on)

# In your app's main(), before app.exec()
from pyside6_mcp import install_bridge
install_bridge()

From Claude

Once the app is running with the bridge active, ask Claude:

"Screenshot the app and click the Apply button" "Why is the checkbox disabled? Inspect its state." "Fill in the form and submit it" "Show me the last 20 log lines from the app"

Claude uses the launch_app, screenshot, get_widget_tree, find_widget, click, type_text, get_logs, and other tools automatically.

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | launch_app(command, cwd, port, timeout) | Launch app and wait for bridge | | stop_app(port) | Stop a launched app | | screenshot(widget_id?) | Capture window or specific widget | | get_widget_tree() | Full widget hierarchy with IDs | | get_widget_info(widget_id) | Detailed properties of one widget | | get_app_state() | Active window, focus, screen info | | find_widget(class_name?, object_name?, text?, visible?) | Search widgets | | click(widget_id?, x?, y?, button?) | Mouse click | | double_click(widget_id, x?, y?) | Double click | | type_text(text, widget_id?) | Keyboard input | | press_key(key) | Named key: enter, escape, tab, up/down, f5, … | | scroll(dy, widget_id?, dx?) | Scroll wheel | | get_logs(n?) | Recent Python log records | | eval_python(code) | Execute Python inside the app process |

Claude Code Skill

A companion skill is included at skills/pyside6-mcp/SKILL.md. It tells Claude when and how to use these tools automatically — no need to explain the workflow every time.

Install it by copying the skill folder to your Claude skills directory:

# macOS / Linux
cp -r skills/pyside6-mcp ~/.claude/skills/

# Windows (PowerShell)
Copy-Item -Recurse skills\pyside6-mcp "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\"

Once installed, Claude will automatically read the skill and use the correct workflow whenever you ask it to debug or interact with a PySide6 app.

Architecture

pyside6_mcp/
├── bridge.py      # In-process HTTP server (runs inside the target app)
├── server.py      # FastMCP stdio server (Claude talks to this)
├── __init__.py    # Exports install_bridge()
└── __main__.py    # Launcher: python -m pyside6_mcp <script>

Thread safety: all Qt operations are marshaled to the main thread via QApplication.postEvent with a custom event type — the same mechanism Qt uses internally for cross-thread signals.

Examples

See examples/test_app.py for a minimal PySide6 app you can use to verify the setup.

License

MIT

MCP Servers