How to add second Home assistant server to mcpServer.json

[LGSONE]

One local HAOS and one remote HAOS via vpn tunnel run both homes. How and can I add a second HOMEASSISTANT_URL and token to the claude_desktop_config.json. Is this possible, and how would I switch between them or use both for comparing settings and frontends? Pretty new to this and any input or direction would be great.

[SealKan]

Yes, this works well. Each ha-mcp instance connects to exactly one Home Assistant, so for two homes you register two separate MCP servers in claude_desktop_config.json, each with its own URL and token. Both are then live at the same time:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Home Assistant (Local)": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ha-mcp@latest"],
      "env": {
        "HOMEASSISTANT_URL": "http://homeassistant.local:8123",
        "HOMEASSISTANT_TOKEN": "<long-lived token from the LOCAL home>",
        "MCP_SERVER_NAME": "ha-local",
        "HA_MCP_CONFIG_DIR": "/Users/youruser/.ha-mcp/local"
      }
    },
    "Home Assistant (Remote)": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ha-mcp@latest"],
      "env": {
        "HOMEASSISTANT_URL": "https://your-vpn-tunnel-host:8123",
        "HOMEASSISTANT_TOKEN": "<long-lived token from the REMOTE home>",
        "MCP_SERVER_NAME": "ha-remote",
        "HA_MCP_CONFIG_DIR": "/Users/youruser/.ha-mcp/remote"
      }
    }
  }
}

Notes:

• Tokens are per-home — generate a Long-Lived Access Token on each HA instance separately (your user profile page, under Long-Lived Access Tokens at the bottom; it lives under the Security tab in recent HA versions) and pair each token with its matching URL.
• HA_MCP_CONFIG_DIR keeps the two isolated — by default both instances write to the same ~/.ha-mcp directory, which holds the persisted per-tool settings (tool_config.json) and the usage logs. Pointing each instance at its own directory means tweaking the enabled tools for one home won't affect the other, and their logs stay separate. Use an absolute path here — Claude Desktop does not expand ~ inside the config. If you never customize tool settings you can drop this key, but for two homes it's the cleaner setup.
• The JSON key ("Home Assistant (Local)" / "Home Assistant (Remote)") is the label Claude Desktop shows, and MCP_SERVER_NAME names the instance at the protocol level. Both servers expose the same tool names (ha_get_state, etc.), so distinct labels make it clear which home a given call targets.
• Using or comparing both — there's no manual switch; both are available at once. Just tell Claude which home you mean ("on the local home, list the lights" / "compare the automations between my local and remote homes") and it routes to the right server.
• Restart Claude Desktop after editing the config (Claude menu → Quit, then reopen).

For the remote one, make sure HOMEASSISTANT_URL is whatever address is reachable through the VPN tunnel from the machine running Claude Desktop.

[kingpanther13]

You can definitely set up more than one like SealKan says but I would recommend against leaving both active at the same time in your AI because it'll get easily confused between the two and can cause some context window issues. I'm not sure if Claude Desktop allows this, but Claude.ai and Claude code both allow disabling MCP servers on demand, so just make sure to disable the one you don't need at the time before you start a session.

[SealKan]

Following up on @kingpanther13's point about disabling the unused server — I checked the current behavior and it differs by client, so worth being precise for anyone landing here:

• Claude Desktop (the claude_desktop_config.json setup in this thread): there's currently no on-demand toggle for locally-configured stdio servers — every entry under mcpServers is enabled at app startup. The per-conversation "+ → Connectors" toggles cover remote connectors and Desktop Extensions (.mcpb one-click installs), not a JSON-configured stdio server like this uvx ha-mcp one. To park a home without deleting its config, move its block out of mcpServers (e.g. into a _disabled_mcpServers key, which Claude ignores) and restart Claude Desktop. There's an open MCP feature request to add a proper enabled flag to the config (modelcontextprotocol#1580), but it hasn't landed yet.
• Claude Code (CLI): here you can flip servers on/off mid-session with /mcp enable <name> and /mcp disable <name> (these /mcp subcommands replaced the older @-mention toggle).
• Claude.ai: remote connectors toggle per-conversation via the same "+ → Connectors" menu.

So @kingpanther13's advice holds — just with a caveat on the mechanics: on Claude Desktop it's a config edit + restart rather than a live toggle, so for two homes the cleanest options are either the _disabled_mcpServers swap when you switch, or use Claude Code if you want to flip them mid-session.