Alternative server configurations

There are a few alternate methods for using the Framelink Figma MCP server. Though the recommended method of running the MCP is in the Quickstart guide, this guide will cover some other ways to run the server.

Server-sent events (SSE)

The MCP server can be configured to use Server-Sent Events (SSE) to stream responses to the client. If you're having issues with the stdio method in quickstart, this is a good alternative.

Start the server

Use npx on the command line to run the MCP server.

> npx figma-developer-mcp --figma-api-key=<your-figma-api-key>
# Initializing Figma MCP Server in HTTP mode on port 3333...
# HTTP server listening on port 3333
# SSE endpoint available at http://localhost:3333/sse
# Message endpoint available at http://localhost:3333/messages

Configure your JSON file to connect to the SSE endpoint

The default port for the MCP server is 3333. You can include the --port=1234 flag in your npx command to change the port number.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Framelink Figma MCP": {
      "url": "http://localhost:3333/sse",
      "env": {
        "FIGMA_API_KEY": "<your-figma-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Running the MCP server locally

  1. Clone the repository
  2. Install dependencies with pnpm install
  3. Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your Figma API access token. Only read access is required.
  4. Run the server with pnpm run dev, along with any of the flags below.
  5. Configure your JSON file to connect to the SSE server, as shown in the section above.

Command-line Arguments

  • --version: Show version number
  • --figma-api-key: Your Figma API access token
  • --port: The port to run the server on
  • --help: Show help menu

Inspect Responses

To inspect responses from the MCP server more easily, you can run the inspect command from the local repository via pnpm inspect. This launches the @modelcontextprotocol/inspector web UI for triggering tool calls and reviewing responses:

pnpm inspect
# > [email protected] inspect
# > pnpx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
#
# Starting MCP inspector...
# Proxy server listening on port 3333
#
# 🔍 MCP Inspector is up and running at http://localhost:5173 🚀