NPX not available to start MCP server, but available in VSCode Terminal

[andreimirt]

Before submitting your bug report

• I believe this is a bug. I'll try to join the Continue Discord for questions
• I'm not able to find an open issue that reports the same bug
• I've seen the troubleshooting guide on the Continue Docs

Relevant environment info

- OS: Windows 11
- Continue version: pre-release
- IDE version: 1.98.2
- Model: not relevant
- config:
  

  
  OR link to assistant in Continue hub:

Description

The image below shows the issue the best.
npx is available in the system and in the terminal in VSCode, but the continue.dev can't see it to run npx for the brave search MPC.

To reproduce

No response

Log output

[zjh-nuc-AIOT]

me too

[limslmao]

I've tried to adjust the command to point to the actual path, but I still cannot run with npx.

[FRitaRr]

Same problem for me, plese help

[psimsa]

I found a workaround to this. Go to your assistant definition on the web and define the MCP server manually, ensuring you run it with cmd instead of powershell, as such:

mcpServers:
  - name: Memory MCP
    command: cmd.exe
    args:
      - /c
      - npx
      - -y
      - "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"

[AkifAycicek]

I used this after npx cli not found error

Vscode continue config

  "experimental": {
    "modelContextProtocolServers": [
      {
        "transport": {
          "type": "stdio",
          "command": "docker",
          "args": [
            "run", 
            "-i", 
            "--rm", 
            "mcp/postgres", 
            "postgresql://postgres:postgres@host.docker.internal:54322/postgres"]
        }
      }
    ]
  },

[kije]

Same problem here.

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Hi all, apologies for the delay here, we'll be digging into this shortly.

In the meantime, the solution from @ozshen in this post worked:

mcpServers:
  - name: Server Memory
-   command: npx
+   command: "cmd"
    args:
+     - /c
+     - npx
      - "-y"
      - "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"

[kije]

Hi all, apologies for the delay here, we'll be digging into this shortly.

In the meantime, the solution from @ozshen in this post worked:

mcpServers:

• name: Server Memory
• command: npx

• command: "cmd"
  args:

• - /c
  

• - npx
  - "-y"
  - "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"
  

On Mac/Linux, this unfortunately does not work (as obviously cmd.exe is not available). Also with something like sh for the command with -c as the argument does not work (for me at least)