Support for Multiple Open Projects

[noreff]

When working with multiple JetBrains IDE projects simultaneously, it's currently difficult to determine which port corresponds to which open project. The current implementation scans ports 63342-63352 and uses the first working port it finds, or allows specifying a single port via the IDE_PORT environment variable.

However, this approach makes it challenging to:

1. Know which specific project a Claude is currently connected to
2. Switch between different open projects intentionally
3. Maintain consistent connections to specific projects

Feature Request

Add support for working with multiple open projects simultaneously, with clear indicators of which port corresponds to which project.

Suggested Solution

1. Add a project identifier in the JetBrains UI that shows:

   • The port number the MCP server is using for that project
   • A visual indicator showing whether Claude is currently connected to this project

2. Enhance the configuration to allow naming of project-port mappings:

"mcpServers": {
  "jetbrains": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y", "@jetbrains/mcp-proxy"],
    "projects": {
      "projectA": {
        "port": 63342,
        "name": "Frontend App"
      },
      "projectB": {
        "port": 63343,
        "name": "Backend API"
      }
    },
    "defaultProject": "projectA"
  }
}

3. Add a command in Claude to list available projects and switch between them:
   • /jetbrains list - Show all available projects
   • /jetbrains connect projectA - Connect to a specific project

Benefits

• Clear visibility into which project Claude is analyzing and modifying
• Ability to work on multiple projects without confusion
• Improved developer experience when managing complex workspaces

This would require:

1. Modifications to the MCP Server plugin to expose project metadata
2. Updates to the proxy server to handle project switching
3. UI enhancements in JetBrains IDEs to show the connection status

Has anyone else encountered this issue when working with multiple projects? How are you currently handling this workflow?

[batya239]

We may add a MCP server tool which select current context project, does it work for you (looks like that prompt "change xxx.txt in my backend project" will work then). Does it work for you?

Actually we take last selected project.

[Lewik]

I think @noreff meant that he runs multiple IDEs and wants to switch between them. But he got a response here: JetBrains/mcp-jetbrains#27 (comment)

To @batya239 : However, when working with a project consisting of multiple modules, MCP clients can't figure out which module they are in. Maybe switching context is a workable idea, but perhaps it would be better to include the module name in the API itself? As well as provide a list of modules and their paths?

(here backend is Python, frontend is web, docs are just a set of txt files)

PS: Assistant and Junie make same mistakes too: they can create folders in wrong place

PSS: omg, batya, thank you for NyanProgressBar! I've been using it for a long time, it's the best plugin

[Lewik]

Is this what we want? #27

[MarcinVaadin]

+1

[hjed]

Not supporting having multiple projects open really limits the usefulness of this mcp unfortunately.

[tribbloid]

@batya239 that's too heavy. Instead if you treat available ports like a hashmap of fixed size, and use a hash function to map each working dir into a port, it can work without collision 90% of the time. The performance loss of collision is also negligable.

I wonder if @Lewik 's PR uses similar or better algorithm

[batya239]

Folks, last couple month we were working on merging plugin to https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community. Could you please do PRs there? I highly appreciate any contribution of you!

[hjed]

Looks like its much more complicated to contribute there @batya239 . Feel free to copy accross my PR, atm I'm just sticking with my forked version.

If I get time I will try copy accross but looks like I'd basically have to do it again :( - the existing version is a bit useless without this feature as it means you can have only one open project at a time and that defeats one of the bigest advantages of AI.

[hjed]

As it looks like the latest intelij update broke the original plugin I've raised a PR JetBrains/intellij-community#3190 with the fix against the community version too.

[MaXal]

@hjed Thank you for the contribution! We will review the PR ASAP!

Since we migrated to functionality to the core, we're also moving issues to our main issue tracker.
This issue is tracked by:
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IJPL-197445/MCP-server-should-be-bound-to-a-project