Symbol-level code search and editing for coding agents, powered by language servers.

Serena gives coding agents IDE-style tools that understand code structure, so Claude can jump to a function, find every place it is used and edit or rename it without reading whole files. It works through language servers for more than 40 languages (or a paid JetBrains plugin as the backend) and can keep project notes as memories between sessions.

Who it is for

Developers working in large codebases
Claude Code users who want fewer tokens spent reading files
Teams refactoring across many files

Prompts to try

Once it is connected, ask in plain words. Claude decides when to use the server and asks before it changes anything important.

Prompt 1

Use Serena to find every caller of calculateInvoiceTotal and show me where each one lives.

Prompt 2

Rename the UserService class to AccountService everywhere in the project with Serena.

Prompt 3

Give me an overview of the symbols in src/payments and point out the main entry points.

How to connect it

In Claude Code

$claude mcp add --scope user serena -- serena start-mcp-server --context claude-code --project-from-cwd

In the Claude desktop app

Add this to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart the app:

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "serena": {
      "command": "serena",
      "args": [
        "start-mcp-server",
        "--context=desktop-app"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Good to know

Install it first with uv tool install -p 3.13 serena-agent, then run serena init; in Claude Desktop, ask Claude to activate your project folder.

Unlock the setup steps

Free. Leave your email once to open the setup steps for all 150 servers, and get the best new connectors each month.

How we checked it

Checked the GitHub repo (30.3k stars, v2.0.0 released 2026-10-13, license file says GPL-3.0-or-later with MIT for the SolidLSP part), its client setup and tool docs, and the PyPI package serena-agent.

Source: github.com/oraios/serena

Serena