Chat SDK for Desktop and MCP

Chat SDK is a free, open-source template built with Next.js, the AI SDK, and Electron, designed to integrate seamlessly with MCP host applications for building powerful desktop chatbot experiences.

Read Docs · Features · Model Providers · Deploy Your Own · Running locally

Changelogs of Chat SDK Desktop with MCP

May 3, 2025

• Initial release with Next.js 14 and Electron integration
  • Default package manager must be npm to navigate packages in the packed file
  • Add commands with postfix 'e', dev:e, build:e and start:e for build and dev with Electron
    • pnpm build && pnpm build:e && pnpm start:e for building and running application
• Implemented basic chat functionality with Antrophic AI providers
• Added MCP Integration
  • Loading MCP servers from config file
  • Human-in-the-loop for asking permission
  • Customizable UI components for MCP tools
• Patched code from the origin code
• Trouble shootings for Development

Jun 8, 2025

• Removed next-electron-rsc dependency that was disabling RSC and enabling MCP client from running server-side
• Added @vercel/mcp-adapter example MCP server

Jun 27, 2025

• Add WebLLM for LocalLLM.
  • You might need 'pnpm exec playwright install' to finish the web-llm-middelware installation

Features

• Next.js App Router
  • Advanced routing for seamless navigation and performance
  • React Server Components (RSCs) and Server Actions for server-side rendering and increased performance
• AI SDK
  • Unified API for generating text, structured objects, and tool calls with LLMs
  • Hooks for building dynamic chat and generative user interfaces
  • Supports xAI (default), OpenAI, Fireworks, and other model providers
• shadcn/ui
  • Styling with Tailwind CSS
  • Component primitives from Radix UI for accessibility and flexibility
• Data Persistence
  • Neon Serverless Postgres for saving chat history and user data
  • Vercel Blob for efficient file storage
• Auth.js
  • Simple and secure authentication

Model Providers

This template ships with xAI grok-2-1212 as the default chat model. However, with the AI SDK, you can switch LLM providers to OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, and many more with just a few lines of code.

Deploy Your Own

You can deploy your own version of the Next.js AI Chatbot to Vercel with one click:

Running locally

You will need to use the environment variables defined in .env.example to run Next.js AI Chatbot. It's recommended you use Vercel Environment Variables for this, but a .env file is all that is necessary.

Note: You should not commit your .env file or it will expose secrets that will allow others to control access to your various AI and authentication provider accounts.

1. Install Vercel CLI: npm i -g vercel
2. Link local instance with Vercel and GitHub accounts (creates .vercel directory): vercel link
3. Download your environment variables: vercel env pull

pnpm install
pnpm dev

Your app template should now be running on localhost:3000.