Summary

Custom MCP Servers Timeout on Zed Startup

Description

I run the following MCP servers.

On startup map-server-ref,
{
/// The name of your MCP server
"mcp-server-ref": {
/// The command which runs the MCP server
"command": "/usr/local/bin/npx",
/// The arguments to pass to the MCP server
"args": ["ref-tools-mcp@latest"],
/// The environment variables to set
"env": {"REF_API_KEY":"ref-116b4149ad3b1126df54"}
}
}

and map-server-browser,
{
/// The name of your MCP server
"mcp-server-browser": {
/// The command which runs the MCP server
"command": "/usr/local/bin/npx",
/// The arguments to pass to the MCP server
"args": ["@browsermcp/mcp@latest"],
/// The environment variables to set
"env": {}
}
}

fail to load as they time out. They are both npx and the only npx in the list. The others are installed as MCP Extensions. If I switch the failed mcp servers off and back on, they then load correctly without timeout.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Add the MCP extensions as per the screenshot
2. Add the two npx mcp servers using the config above.
3. restart Zed and see they fail due to timeout
4. toggle the failed mcp servers off then on

Expected Behavior:
All MCP servers load and don't timeout on start up
Actual Behavior:
The npx based mcp servers timeout and fail to load

Zed Version and System Specs

Zed: v0.203.5 (Zed)
OS: macOS 26.0.0
Memory: 64 GiB
Architecture: aarch64