[Feature Request] Claude should be able to reconnect/reset MCP server

[nibzard]

It would be great if Claude Code could reset an MCP server during one session. One use case is to allow Claude Code to develop and debug new MCP servers.

[dsarno]

Very much agree with the value of this feature — robust reconnection support would make Claude Code and Desktop significantly more resilient and capable when working with real-world MCP servers. Many environments (especially non-Node ones like Unity, Python, JVM, etc.) can and do restart their MCP bridges during development or as part of normal behavior (e.g. domain reloads, test runs, script recompiles).

🚨 Real-world use case from Unity MCP integration We've built a run_tests tool for Unity using MCP. During Play Mode test execution, Unity triggers a domain reload that unloads all C# state — including the MCP server and WebSocket. The server is immediately restarted on reload.

Claude receives { status: "started", testRunId: "..." } correctly — but then:

 ❌ Does not reconnect to the new MCP server after reload

 ❌ Continues polling read_resource("unity://test_result/...") over a now-dead WebSocket

 ❌ Never triggers OnOpen or OnMessage in the restarted Unity socket handler

 ✅ The Unity side is working correctly — it saves results to a temp file after tests finish
 ❌ But Claude never resumes polling, and no results are returned

A few concrete improvements that would solve this:

• Detect when the WebSocket has been disconnected

• Reconnect automatically, and re-establish MCP client session

• Allow retrying in-progress operations like read_resource(...) or polling tools

This would unlock many valuable workflows, including test orchestration, hot-reloading servers, and robust IDE integrations with ephemeral MCP backends. Let us know if you'd like help testing a fix — we've got a complete test case wired up and ready to go.

[davemo88]

I have a use case for this - I'm developing a game with an embedded mcp server. as claude iterates on the game, it needs to stop and start it a lot, and then use mcp commands to e.g. test features, take screenshots, etc. but it becomes pretty cumbersome to stop and start both the game and claude.

[natepiano]

+1 - i'm developing an mcp server with claude code and every time i make a change i have to install and start a new instance. Relaunching a running mcp server instance would speed up my workflow substantially. Especially if resetting was something i could invoke from a prompt without having to issue the slash command directly - then i can include it in a workflow prompt so that this can be managed without my intervention. Please please please!

[ollie-anthropic]

Hey all, this should be available in the latest release v1.0.64 :) sorry for the delay on this.

It is available via /mcp, and then going to the tool (as screenshotted below), but you can also type /mcp reconnect <server_name>

[github-actions[bot]]

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