A side-by-side look at the Cortex and Central Intelligence MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Cortex for knowledge & memory work over a hosted endpoint; choose Central Intelligence for knowledge & memory as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
CORTEX_ACCESS_TOKEN, CORTEX_MCP_URL.CI_API_KEY.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Knowledge & Memory | Knowledge & Memory |
| Quality signal | 40/100 · Fair | 51/100 · Good |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Remote HTTP/SSE | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | Not declared | API key required |
| Pricing | Not declared | Freemium |
| Required env vars | CORTEX_ACCESS_TOKENCORTEX_MCP_URL | CI_API_KEY |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 1 | 3 |
| Directory activity | 1 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 2 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | Not listed | Not listed |
| Full listing | View Cortex | View Central Intelligence |
No tool names declared yet. Check the project README from the listing page.
No tool names declared yet. Check the project README from the listing page.
Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
{
"mcpServers": {
"cortex-5": {
"url": "https://skynetlab-cortex-saas-mcp.cortex-320.workers.dev/mcp"
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"alekseimarchenko-central-intelligence": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"central-intelligence-local"
],
"env": {
"CI_API_KEY": "YOUR_CI_API_KEY_HERE"
}
}
}
}