MCP Multi Edit

Multi Edit MCP Server

An MCP server that gives Claude the ability to perform multiple find-and-replace operations in a single tool call with guaranteed atomicity -- all edits succeed or none apply.

Built by Essential AI Solutions for Claude Code and Claude Desktop.

Why Multi Edit?

Claude's built-in Edit tool handles one find-and-replace per call. When renaming a variable across a file or refactoring multiple files, that means dozens of individual tool calls -- each consuming context tokens and adding latency.

Multi Edit batches them into a single call:

Without multi_edit:      105 tool calls   |   15,750 tokens

With multi_edit: 21 tool calls | 7,850 tokens (-80% calls, -50% tokens) With multi_edit_files: 6 tool calls | 4,550 tokens (-94% calls, -71% tokens)

Benchmarks run on realistic scenarios (bulk rename, logging migration, cross-file refactor).

See benchmarks/results/BENCHMARK-REPORT.md for full details.

Quick Start

Claude Code

Add .mcp.json to your project root:

{

"mcpServers": { "Multi Edit from Essential AI Solutions (essentialai.uk)": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@essentialai/mcp-multi-edit"] } } }

Restart Claude Code. Then add the included CLAUDE.md to your project root so Claude automatically prefers multi_edit over the built-in Edit tool:

## Editing Files

When making multiple edits to the same file or across multiple files, prefer using the multi_edit and multi_edit_files MCP tools over the built-in Edit tool. These batch edits atomically in a single call.

That's it -- Claude will now use multi_edit whenever it's the right tool for the job.

Display name: Claude Code uses the key name in mcpServers as the server's display name. You can change the key to any name you prefer.

Alternative: One-liner via CLI:

claude mcp add --transport stdio multi-edit -- npx -y @essentialai/mcp-multi-edit

Note: The CLI only accepts simple names (letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores). For the full branded display name, use the .mcp.json approach above.

Claude Desktop

Add to your config file (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{

"mcpServers": { "Multi Edit from Essential AI Solutions (essentialai.uk)": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@essentialai/mcp-multi-edit"] } } }

Restart Claude Desktop.

Full installation guide: docs/installation.md

Tools

multi_edit -- Single file, multiple edits

Batch multiple find-and-replace operations on one file. Edits apply sequentially and atomically.

{

"file_path": "/project/src/app.ts", "edits": [ { "old_string": "const oldName = getValue()", "new_string": "const newName = getValue()" }, { "old_string": "console.log", "new_string": "logger.info", "replace_all": true } ] }

multi_edit_files -- Multiple files, one atomic operation

Coordinate edits across multiple files. If any file fails, all files are rolled back automatically.

{

"files": [ { "file_path": "/project/src/types.ts", "edits": [ { "old_string": "interface UserData {", "new_string": "interface UserProfile {" } ] }, { "file_path": "/project/src/api.ts", "edits": [ { "old_string": "UserData", "new_string": "UserProfile", "replace_all": true } ] } ] }

Full usage guide with examples: docs/usage.md

Features

• Atomic operations -- all edits succeed or none apply, no partial state
• Multi-file rollback -- if any file fails, all previously changed files are restored
• Dry-run preview -- see exactly what would change before committing
• Automatic backups -- .bak files created before every edit (disable with backup: false)
• Structured errors -- machine-readable error codes with recovery hints for automatic retry
• Conflict detection -- warns when old_string matches multiple locations
• Path validation -- absolute path enforcement, symlink resolution, existence checks

Error Codes

When retryable is true, Claude reads the recovery_hints in the response, adjusts the input, and retries automatically.

Troubleshooting guide: docs/troubleshooting.md

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or later
• Claude Code or Claude Desktop

Development

npm install           # Install dependencies

npm run build # Compile TypeScript npm test # Run 264 tests npm run test:coverage # Coverage report (90%+) npm run benchmark # Run benchmark suite npm run dev # Watch mode

Project Structure

src/

index.ts # MCP server entry (stdio transport) server.ts # Server factory and tool registration tools/ multi-edit.ts # multi_edit tool handler multi-edit-files.ts # multi_edit_files tool handler core/ editor.ts # File editing engine (atomic read-modify-write) validator.ts # Zod input validation schemas reporter.ts # Result formatting and diff generation errors.ts # Error classification and envelope creation types/ index.ts # TypeScript type definitions

Documentation

License

PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0

Free for personal and non-commercial use. For commercial licensing, contact support@essentialai.uk.

---

Built by Essential AI Solutions