Carbon MCP: IBM's design system inside your editor

Carbon is IBM's open source design system, and its MCP server lets your AI app explore Carbon docs, components, design tokens, icons, charts and code examples while it builds your UI. ContextGate connects it to Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, and shows in Activity which parts of Carbon your AI app looked up before it wrote the markup.

  • Ready to connect
  • Free

Using Carbon from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor

  1. 1Click Connect Carbon free and sign in to Carbon.
  2. 2Carbon's tools are for exploring docs and examples, and all of them are on when you connect. Keep the component, token and icon lookups your front-end work needs, and switch off the rest.
  3. 3Add ContextGate to your AI app as a connector or MCP server. The steps for each app are on the Works with page.
  4. 4Ask Cursor which Carbon token to use for a button's background, with a code example, then open Activity to see the lookups.

Build with Carbon from your AI app

  • Look up a Carbon component and its code examples while your AI app writes the markup.
  • Find the right design token for color, spacing or type instead of hard-coding values.
  • Search Carbon's icons and charts for one that fits the screen you're building.
  • Read Carbon's docs on a pattern without leaving Cursor or Claude Code.

Carbon lookups, on record

  • Switch off any Carbon tool you don't need; AI apps no longer see it, and calls to it are refused.
  • Activity records each Carbon call, so you can see what your AI app checked before it wrote the code.
  • Workspace policies check these calls like any other connection, blocking secrets that slip into a request.

What you get with Carbon and ContextGate

  • Your AI apps can use CarbonClaude, Cursor, ChatGPT and other AI apps reach Carbon through the one ContextGate connection you add to them.
  • You choose which tools they can useSwitch off any Carbon tool you don't want used. It's hidden from your AI apps and refused if called.
  • Every call is checked and recordedYour policies check each call (for example, personal data is hidden and secrets are blocked), and Activity keeps a record of it.

ContextGate sees only the tool calls that go through it, not your AI app's built-in tools or your chats.

Carbon tools

Carbon's own MCP server shows its tools once you sign in. When you connect it, they are listed and synced in your workspace.