ShadowGit MCP server

Gives Claude Code, Cursor and Claude Desktop access to ShadowGit: the automatic snapshots ShadowGit takes of your projects every few minutes, kept apart from your own git history. Your assistant can see what changed and when, and can save its own edits as one named checkpoint instead of many partial snapshots.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or later
• The ShadowGit app (0.3.4 or later for checkpoints, a release after 0.3.5 for the Lens, after 0.3.7 for its linked words), tracking at least one project. Reading history works while the app is closed; sessions, checkpoints and the Lens need it running.
• Git on your PATH

Setup

Claude Code (one install for every project):

claude mcp add --scope user shadowgit -- npx -y shadowgit-mcp-server

Cursor: in ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "shadowgit": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "shadowgit-mcp-server"] } } }

Claude Desktop: the same entry in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows).

In Claude Code the server knows which project you are in. In Cursor and Claude Desktop, name the project ("in webshop") when ShadowGit tracks more than one.

What to ask

• "What changed in the last hour?"
• "When did the login page break?"
• "Show me the history of Header.tsx"
• "Start a ShadowGit session for this refactor", then "Create a checkpoint: Fixed login redirect", then "End the ShadowGit session"
• "Write the Lens words for this session"

Tools

The other tools work on the current project unless given repo.

Security

git_command runs only read-only subcommands, without a shell, and refuses the options that would read or write files outside the snapshot history (--output, --no-index, blame --contents and others, including abbreviated and bundled forms), the ones that run helper commands from git's configuration (--ext-diff, --textconv, --filters), and paths outside the project. Checkpoints are made by the ShadowGit app, only in projects you added to it. The server itself only talks to the ShadowGit app on localhost; what it returns goes to your assistant like any tool result.

The server trusts the project's .shadowgit.git history, which the ShadowGit app creates. Git honours that history's configuration, so a planted one can make git run programs, through the app's own snapshots as much as through this server. Don't add a project to ShadowGit that arrived with a .shadowgit.git folder you didn't create.

Configuration

Development

npm install
npm test        # builds, then runs the unit, integration and end-to-end tests
npm run eval    # runs the phrases from docs.shadowgit.com through Claude Code (spends tokens)

License

MIT