Add a Rule#
To avoid typing use context7 in every prompt, add a rule to your MCP client to automatically invoke Context7 for code-related questions:
- Cursor:
Cursor Settings > Rules - Claude Code:
CLAUDE.md - Or the equivalent in your MCP client
Example rule:
Use Library ID#
If you already know exactly which library you want to use, add its Context7 ID to your prompt. That way, Context7 MCP server can skip the library-matching step and directly continue with retrieving docs.
The slash syntax tells the MCP tool exactly which library to load docs for.
Specify a Version#
To get documentation for a specific library version, just mention the version in your prompt:
Context7 will automatically match the appropriate version.
Query Strategy#
Context7 grounds your assistant with up-to-date docs, but the quality of what it retrieves depends on how the retrieval is scoped. These habits keep the retrieved context minimal and relevant:
- Retrieve only when needed — Context7 is for library, framework, SDK, API, and CLI-tool questions. Skip it for refactoring, writing scripts from scratch, debugging business logic, code review, or general programming concepts.
- One concept per query — scope each query to a single topic. Split multi-topic questions (e.g. "routing and auth and caching") into a separate query per concept, unless the question is about how the concepts interact. Combined queries dilute ranking and return shallow results for each topic.
- Be specific, not vague — a query like
"How to set up authentication with JWT in Express.js"returns far better results than"auth"or"hooks". - Keep the context relevant — don't include sensitive or confidential information in queries, and use the best-matching library ID (and version-specific ID when a version matters) so you don't pull docs for the wrong package.