rdmsm4x — denied 18 unauthenticated MCP servers in Claude Code (2026-09-26 22:00 EDT)

Summary: Claude Code on rdmsm4x no longer loads the 18 MCP servers that only exposed authenticate tools (Exa, ZoomInfo, Stripe, …). Connected servers are unaffected.

Scope

• Host: rdmsm4x only. User settings ~/.claude/settings.json (applies to every project on this host).
• Account-level claude.ai connectors are NOT removed — they still exist at claude.ai/settings/connectors and in claude.ai web/desktop.

Change

Appended to deniedMcpServers (existing 10 entries kept; 10 → 28):

• claude.ai: AWS Marketplace, Amazon Selling Partner, Audible, Canva, Exa, Mem0, NPI Registry, Sitelemetry, Sonos, Spotify, Stripe, Tripadvisor, Uber, Uber Eats, WordPress.com, ZoomInfo
• plugin:dropbox:claude_app_mcp, plugin:pandadoc:pandadoc (unauthenticated duplicates of the connected claude.ai Dropbox / PandaDoc connectors)

Matched by serverName only — a serverUrl rule for the two plugin duplicates would also have blocked the connected claude.ai Dropbox/PandaDoc, which share the URL.

Verification

• claude mcp list: 47 servers before → 29 after; none of the 18 listed; claude.ai Dropbox, PandaDoc, local mem0-shared still Connected.
• Session reported the 16 claude.ai servers as blocked by policy; settings.json parses; defaultMode still bypassPermissions (untouched).

Undo

cp -p ~/.claude/settings.json.bak-20260926-deny-auth-mcp ~/.claude/settings.json (or delete the entries from deniedMcpServers).