MCP Installation instructions

MCP Installation instructions

This document is mainly used as instructions for AI-assistants like Cline and others that try to do an automatic install based on freeform instructions.

1. Make sure uv is installed. If not, install it using either curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh (macOS, Linux) or powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex" (Windows). Find the path to the uv executable, you'll need it later.
2. Clone the repo with git clone git@github.com:oraios/serena.git and change into its dir (e.g., cd serena)
3. Check if serena_config.yml exists. If not, create it with cp serena_config.template.yml serena_config.yml. Read the instructions in the config.
4. In the config, check if the path to your project was added. If not, add it to the projects section
5. In your project, create a .serena if needed and check whether project.yml exists there.
6. If no project.yml was found, create it using cp /path/to/serena/myproject.template.yml /path/to/your/project/.serena/project.yml
7. Read the instructions in project.yml. Make sure the project.yml has the correct project language configured. Remove the project_root entry there.
8. Finally, add the Serena MCP server config like this:

   {
       "mcpServers": {
            ...
           "serena": {
               "command": "/abs/path/to/uv",
               "args": ["run", "--directory", "/abs/path/to/serena", "serena-mcp-server", "/path/to/your/project/.serena/project.yml"]
           }
       }
   }