---
title: Mobbin MCP (real-world design inspiration for recipes)
---

# Mobbin MCP — real-world design inspiration for recipes

## What it is

### What it is

Mobbin MCP connects Claude to [Mobbin](https://mobbin.com) — a searchable library of real-world app screenshots, user flows, and UI patterns from thousands of shipped apps. When it's enabled, recipes that ask for design inspiration (chiefly the bundled **Design Overhaul** recipe) can have Claude search Mobbin for screens, flows, and popular apps in your project's domain and feed what it finds into the design work, instead of inventing an aesthetic from scratch.

"MCP" is the Model Context Protocol — an open standard that lets Claude call out to external tools and data sources. Enabling Mobbin MCP registers a Mobbin MCP server with the Claude Code CLI so any session a recipe spawns can call the Mobbin search tools. It's off by default and requires a one-time authentication: you paste your `mobbin.com` browser cookie once so Claude can search the library as you.

It works with **free** and **Pro** Mobbin accounts. Free accounts are limited to the 4 most recent apps, 3 collections, and basic search; Pro ($10/mo) unlocks the full library, unlimited collections, and advanced filters. There is no Omniscio-side paywall — whatever your Mobbin account can see, the tools can see.

## Where to find it

**Settings → Sessions**, on the **Mobbin MCP (design research)** card. The card carries the toggle, a **Compare plans** link and the **Setup MCP** action.

## How it behaves

### How to use it

1. **Open the setting.** Go to Settings → **Sessions** and find the **Mobbin MCP (design research)** card. The toggle is off by default. The card explains the free-vs-Pro limits with a **Compare plans** link to `https://mobbin.com/pricing`.
2. **Click "Setup Mobbin MCP".** Omniscio registers the Mobbin MCP server with the Claude Code CLI in the background — no terminal window opens and no Claude session is spawned. The button shows **Setting up…** while it works.
3. **Paste your Mobbin cookie when prompted.** If you're not already authenticated, the card switches to a **Paste your Mobbin cookie** step with four instructions:
   1. Log into **mobbin.com** in your browser.
   2. Open the browser console — press **F12** then click the **Console** tab (or try **Ctrl+Shift+J** / **Cmd+Option+J**).
   3. Run `copy(document.cookie)` — nothing visible happens, but the cookie is copied to your clipboard.
   4. Paste it into the box and click **Authenticate**.
4. **Confirmation.** On success the card shows **"Mobbin MCP configured and authenticated."** and the toggle flips on. If the cookie isn't accepted you'll see _"Cookie not accepted. Make sure you copied the full cookie from mobbin.com."_ and can retry; if MCP registration itself fails you'll see a hint that the Claude Code CLI must be installed.
5. **Run a recipe that uses it.** The bundled **Design Overhaul** recipe has a first step, _"Gather Mobbin design inspiration,"_ that calls the Mobbin tools (`mobbin_search_screens`, `mobbin_search_flows`, `mobbin_popular_apps`, `mobbin_quick_search`, `mobbin_get_app_screens`) to build a design-inspiration brief before auditing your project. That step is written to **skip gracefully** if the tools aren't available — the overhaul still runs without Mobbin, just without the real-world reference brief.
6. **Turn it off** any time by flipping the toggle back off. The cookie you pasted lives on your machine (see below), not in Omniscio's database.

You only authenticate once. The pasted cookie is parsed for your Mobbin session token and stored locally; you don't need to repeat the steps unless the token expires or you sign out of Mobbin.

## For agents

### How it works

The toggle is the `mobbinMcpEnabled` setting (default `false`) defined in [/src/shared/types.ts](/src/shared/types.ts) with a matching Zod field in `updateSettingsSchema` in [/src/shared/ipc-schemas.ts](/src/shared/ipc-schemas.ts). The card itself is the `MobbinMcpSetting` component in [/src/renderer/src/features/settings/sections/session/SessionSettings.tsx](/src/renderer/src/features/settings/sections/session/SessionSettings.tsx) (`data-setting-id="mobbin-mcp"`), driven by a small state machine: `idle → working → needs-cookie → done | error`.

Both **Setup** and **Authenticate** call one IPC channel, `MOBBIN_MCP_SETUP` (`mobbin-mcp:setup`), validated by `mobbinMcpSetupSchema` — an optional `cookie` string (1–10,000 chars). The handler lives in [/src/main/ipc/toolchain-handlers.ts](/src/main/ipc/toolchain-handlers.ts) and runs three steps:

1. **Parse the cookie (if one was pasted).** Mobbin authenticates via Supabase, which splits a large auth token across multiple browser cookies named like `sb-<project>-auth-token.0`, `sb-<project>-auth-token.1`, …. The handler splits the pasted `document.cookie` string on `;`, concatenates those chunks in order, base64-decodes the result into a JSON session object, and — if it contains an `access_token` — writes it to `~/.mobbin-mcp/auth.json` (creating the directory if needed). This file is the Mobbin MCP server's credential; it never enters Omniscio's SQLite database or `config.json`.
2. **Register the MCP server.** It runs `claude mcp remove mobbin -s user` (idempotent cleanup) and then `claude mcp add -s user mobbin -- npx -y mobbin-mcp`, registering the npm-published `mobbin-mcp` server at user scope so every Claude Code session — including the ones recipes spawn — can see the Mobbin tools. (On Windows these go through `cmd.exe /c` with `claude.cmd` / `npx.cmd`; spawns use a cleaned env and short timeouts.)
3. **Report status.** It checks that `~/.mobbin-mcp/auth.json` exists and is valid JSON, then returns `{ configured: boolean, authed: boolean }`. `configured` false means the `claude mcp add` step failed (usually the Claude Code CLI isn't installed); `configured` true + `authed` false means the server is registered but still needs a cookie, which is what drives the renderer into the **needs-cookie** state.

This inline cookie-paste flow deliberately replaces an earlier browser-redirect design: there is no popup browser window and no spawned Claude session, so it costs nothing and never appears in your session list. The recipe wiring lives in [/resources/recipe-patterns/design-overhaul.pattern.json](/resources/recipe-patterns/design-overhaul.pattern.json) — its first step researches Mobbin and explicitly instructs the agent to skip the step gracefully if the MCP tools are unavailable or return auth errors, so an un-set-up or expired Mobbin never blocks a design overhaul.

## Related

### Related

- [use-recipes.md](use-recipes.md) — recipes (including Design Overhaul) are what consume the Mobbin tools
- [mempalace-memory.md](mempalace-memory.md) — the other built-in MCP integration Omniscio wires into sessions