davila7/claude-code-templates · error · Error

Failed to parse MCP content for ${componentData.name}: ${err

Error message

Failed to parse MCP content for ${componentData.name}: ${error.message}

What it means

The CLI fetches the MCP component's JSON content and calls JSON.parse on it before merging into the user's MCP config. If the component file (or its embedded content field in components.json) is not valid JSON, the parse throws and the installer wraps it with the component name and the underlying parse error. This is a data-integrity error: the shipped component payload is malformed.

Source

Thrown at cli-tool/src/index.js:2365

      const commandsDir = path.join(targetDir, '.claude', 'commands');
      await fs.ensureDir(commandsDir);
      targetPath = path.join(commandsDir, `${fileName}.md`);
      
    } else if (type === 'mcp') {
      // For MCPs, merge with existing .mcp.json
      const targetMcpFile = path.join(targetDir, '.mcp.json');
      let existingConfig = {};
      
      if (await fs.pathExists(targetMcpFile)) {
        existingConfig = await fs.readJson(targetMcpFile);
      }
      
      // Parse MCP content and merge
      let mcpConfig;
      try {
        mcpConfig = JSON.parse(componentData.content);
      } catch (error) {
        throw new Error(`Failed to parse MCP content for ${componentData.name}: ${error.message}`);
      }
      
      // Remove description field before merging (CLI processing)
      if (mcpConfig.mcpServers) {
        for (const serverName in mcpConfig.mcpServers) {
          if (mcpConfig.mcpServers[serverName] && typeof mcpConfig.mcpServers[serverName] === 'object') {
            delete mcpConfig.mcpServers[serverName].description;
          }
        }
      }
      
      // Merge configurations
      const mergedConfig = {
        ...existingConfig,
        ...mcpConfig
      };
      
      // Deep merge mcpServers

View on GitHub (pinned to a0851ed10c)

Solutions

1. Inspect the raw component JSON: open cli-tool/components/mcp/<category>/<name>.json and run it through a JSON validator to find the syntax error
2. Fix the JSON syntax (remove comments/trailing commas, quote keys), then re-run python scripts/generate_components_json.py and republish
3. If you can't edit the catalog, pin/roll back to a previous CLI version whose bundled catalog had a valid copy: npx claude-code-templates@<older-version> --mcp <name>
4. As a last resort, manually copy the corrected mcpServers block into your .mcp.json / claude_desktop config, matching what the installer would merge

Example fix

// before (component file)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "example": { "command": "npx", // note comment and trailing comma below
      "args": ["-y", "example"], }
  }
}
// after
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "example": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "example"] }
  }
}

const raw = componentData.content;
let parsed;
try { parsed = JSON.parse(raw); } catch (e) { console.error(`${componentData.name} has invalid JSON: ${e.message}`); process.exit(1); }

function isValidMcpConfig(v) { return typeof v === 'object' && v !== null && typeof v.mcpServers === 'object' && v.mcpServers !== null; }

try { mcpConfig = JSON.parse(componentData.content); } catch (error) { if (error instanceof SyntaxError) { console.error(`Skipping malformed MCP component ${componentData.name}: ${error.message}`); return; } throw error; }

When it happens

Trigger: Installing an MCP component via `npx claude-code-templates --mcp <name>` where the component's .json file contains a syntax error (trailing comma, comment, unquoted key, BOM) or the content was truncated during catalog generation.

Common situations: A maintainer hand-edited an MCP json and left a trailing comma or comment; the published components.json was generated from a partially saved file; the component contains template placeholders that are not valid JSON.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• No files were copied from Cloudflare component directory
• Cloudflare component files not found at: ${componentsDir}
• Docker component files not found at: ${componentsDir}
• Components file not found
• Warning: Could not read settings.json for project ${projectD

AI-assisted analysis of davila7/claude-code-templates@a0851ed10c (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c44d14edb36cf6ff. Report an issue: GitHub.