Quickstart

Prerequisites

You need:

A PostgreSQL database — any version 12+, accessible from your machine

Install Isthmus

curl -fsSL https://isthmus.dev/install.sh | sh

The script downloads a prebuilt binary for your platform. If no release is available, it falls back to go install (requires Go 1.25+).Verify the binary is in your PATH:

isthmus --version

See Installation for all methods including manual download, go install, clone & build, and Docker.

Configure your MCP client

This example uses Claude Desktop. Open the config file:

macOS
Windows

open ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the Isthmus server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "isthmus": {
      "command": "isthmus",
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/mydb"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace the DATABASE_URL with your actual PostgreSQL connection string.

See Client Setup for other clients like Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.

Restart and ask a question

Restart Claude Desktop, then try:

“What tables are in my database?”

Claude will call discover to map out your database structure, then summarize what it finds.

Next steps

Installation — all install methods including Docker and build from source
Configuration — env vars, CLI flags, and a full reference table
Tools Reference — what each tool does and how the AI uses them
Policy Engine — enrich responses with business context
Column Masking — protect PII in query results and sample rows
HTTP Transport — serve MCP over HTTP for web clients and ChatGPT Desktop
OpenTelemetry — tracing and metrics for production monitoring

Getting Started

Client Setup

Features

Security

Architecture

Next steps

​Next steps

Next steps