How to operate multiple accounts simultaneously with Cloudinary MCP Server

Good day, this is Ito from Berlin.

Have you ever wanted to use multiple Cloudinary accounts simultaneously, such as for development, production, personal use, etc. after trying Cloudinary MCP?

In my recent blog post, I introduced the results of trying the Cloudinary Remote MCP server, which was convenient to implement with browser authentication, but had limitations when switching sessions.

https://dev.classmethod.jp/articles/cloudinary-remote-mcp-server-with-claude/

This time, I'd like to share the results of my investigation into how to operate multiple environments simultaneously within the same Claude Desktop chat using the Cloudinary Local MCP server.

Why is managing multiple accounts necessary?

It's common to use multiple Cloudinary environments for reasons such as:

• Separation of development, staging, and production environments
• Switching between company and personal accounts
• Managing cloud environments by project
• Isolating test data

Traditionally, you needed to log in to the console for each environment or switch API keys, but with the Local MCP Server, you can operate multiple accounts using natural language within a single chat.

What you can do with Cloudinary MCP Server

First, let's take a look at what you can do with Cloudinary MCP.

Please list the files and folder names under the Cloudinary root as bullet points

👉 You can quickly check what files are where.

Please transform nptfgakicsqcvwmg4aut.png with a width of 200 px and apply f_auto

👉 You can instruct transformations in natural language and get the URL.

Please rename that asset to "bund_id_logo_white.png".

👉 Changing asset names is also easy!

I want to include samples/bike.jpg in an email newsletter about bicycles, so please transform it appropriately

👉 It even handles such vague requests well. By the way, the proposed transformed images looked like this:

A simple HTML page created with the request "Please create a simple HTML page that displays all transformed images on one page for comparison"## Let's Try with Multiple Accounts

I tried making the following requests using both my company's development environment (dev) and my personal environment.

Please upload the following file to the ito-test folder in the dev Cloudinary account
/Users/itoma/Desktop/Screenshot 2025-08-26 at 14.00.01.png

Please upload the same file to the personal account as well

Please change the filename in the dev account to claude-test-file.png

👉 I was able to execute these requests within the same chat for each account. No need to sign out or switch authentication!

Furthermore, here's a batch operation:

Please upload all files in the following folder to both dev/personal accounts. Upload destination should be under ito-test/claude-test/ and add the "test" tag.
/Users/itoma/Downloads/claude-test-folder

👉 I was able to execute operations on two accounts simultaneously with a single request. This is convenient!

How to Configure Multiple Local MCPs

Since API keys are issued per account/cloud, you need to prepare each API key and set up the local MCP accordingly.

Local MCP Setup Procedure

Edit the claude_desktop_config.json file as follows:

			
			{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dev-cloudinary-asset-mgmt": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "--package", "@cloudinary/asset-management", "--", "mcp", "start"],
      "env": {
        "CLOUDINARY_URL": "cloudinary://{dev account API key}:{API secret}@{cloud name}"
      }
    },
    "personal-cloudinary-asset-mgmt": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "--package", "@cloudinary/asset-management", "--", "mcp", "start"],
      "env": {
        "CLOUDINARY_URL": "cloudinary://{personal account API key}:{API secret}@{cloud name}"
      }
    }
  }
}

		

After saving, restart Claude Desktop.

Configuration Points

Customize MCP Server Names

• In Cloudinary's official configuration, it's called cloudinary-asset-mgmt, but this name is arbitrary
• Use easily identifiable names like dev-cloudinary-asset-mgmt
• This helps the LLM correctly interpret instructions like "for dev" or "for personal"

Configure for Each Feature

• As explained in my previous blog post, there are 5 Cloudinary MCP servers for different features
• For simplicity, I'm testing with just the asset-management feature across 2 accounts
• If you want to use 4 features across 2 accounts, you'll need 8 mcpServers configurations## Summary

With the method of utilizing multiple environments described here, we were able to perform concurrent operations and batch operations across multiple environments without having to switch authentication. While Remote MCP is convenient for trial use because of its easy authentication, Local MCP is currently more practical for operations handling multiple environments like this.

Using the MCP server, I was again impressed by the following advantages:

• Natural language instructions (ability to say "that file..." or "similarly...")
• Intelligent conversion suggestions even for ambiguous requests
• Execution through MCP prevents failures due to API parameter typos or references to outdated documentation
• Ability to execute multiple operations across multiple accounts at once

The Cloudinary MCP Server is still in Beta, so we look forward to future improvements.

I hope this serves as a useful reference!

Classmethod is a Cloudinary partner and can assist with implementation. Please feel free to contact us through this form. You can also sign up for free here.