diff --git a/gitnexus-desktop/src/main/main.ts b/gitnexus-desktop/src/main/main.ts
index f8a198a75..6d4d8714f 100644
--- a/gitnexus-desktop/src/main/main.ts
+++ b/gitnexus-desktop/src/main/main.ts
@@ -270,7 +270,7 @@ const spawnGitNexusServer = (): ChildProcess => {
     [getGitNexusCliEntry(), 'serve', '--host', GITNEXUS_HOST],
     {
       cwd: getGitNexusRuntimeDir(),
-      env: getNodeProcessEnvironment(),
+      env: getNodeProcessEnvironment(app.isPackaged ? { GITNEXUS_DISABLE_MCP_HTTP: '1' } : {}),
       stdio: ['ignore', 'pipe', 'pipe'],
       windowsHide: true,
     },
diff --git a/gitnexus/src/server/api.ts b/gitnexus/src/server/api.ts
index d9aa00ae6..85dfaaec3 100644
--- a/gitnexus/src/server/api.ts
+++ b/gitnexus/src/server/api.ts
@@ -29,7 +29,6 @@ import { hybridSearch } from '../core/search/hybrid-search.js';
 // Embedding imports are lazy (dynamic import) to avoid loading onnxruntime-node
 // at server startup — crashes on unsupported Node ABI versions (#89)
 import { LocalBackend } from '../mcp/local/local-backend.js';
-import { mountMCPEndpoints } from './mcp-http.js';
 import { fork } from 'child_process';
 import { fileURLToPath, pathToFileURL } from 'url';
 import { JobManager } from './analyze-job.js';
@@ -38,6 +37,10 @@ import { extractRepoName, getCloneDir, cloneOrPull } from './git-clone.js';
 const _require = createRequire(import.meta.url);
 const pkg = _require('../../package.json');
 
+export const shouldEnableMcpHttp = (): boolean => {
+  return process.env.GITNEXUS_DISABLE_MCP_HTTP !== '1';
+};
+
 /**
  * Determine whether an HTTP Origin header value is allowed by CORS policy.
  *
@@ -560,7 +563,15 @@ export const createServer = async (port: number, host: string = '127.0.0.1') =>
   // Initialize MCP backend (multi-repo, shared across all MCP sessions)
   const backend = new LocalBackend();
   await backend.init();
-  const cleanupMcp = mountMCPEndpoints(app, backend);
+  let cleanupMcp: () => Promise<void> = async () => {};
+
+  // Desktop packaged runtime disables MCP HTTP because the SDK import tree
+  // currently trips Electron's embedded Node resolver during server startup.
+  if (shouldEnableMcpHttp()) {
+    const { mountMCPEndpoints } = await import('./mcp-http.js');
+    cleanupMcp = mountMCPEndpoints(app, backend);
+  }
+
   const jobManager = new JobManager();
 
   // Shared repo lock — prevents concurrent analyze + embed on the same repo path,
diff --git a/gitnexus/test/unit/web-ui-serving.test.ts b/gitnexus/test/unit/web-ui-serving.test.ts
index d3f085422..40570b488 100644
--- a/gitnexus/test/unit/web-ui-serving.test.ts
+++ b/gitnexus/test/unit/web-ui-serving.test.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import path from 'node:path';
 import http from 'node:http';
 import express from 'express';
-import { describe, expect, it, vi, beforeEach } from 'vitest';
+import { describe, expect, it, vi, beforeEach, afterEach } from 'vitest';
 
 const { accessMock } = vi.hoisted(() => ({
   accessMock: vi.fn(),
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ import {
   resolveWebDistDir,
   landingPageHtml,
   SPA_FALLBACK_REGEX,
+  shouldEnableMcpHttp,
   staticCacheControlSetHeaders,
 } from '../../src/server/api.js';
 
@@ -94,6 +95,22 @@ describe('landingPageHtml', () => {
   });
 });
 
+describe('shouldEnableMcpHttp', () => {
+  afterEach(() => {
+    vi.unstubAllEnvs();
+  });
+
+  it('enables MCP HTTP by default', () => {
+    expect(shouldEnableMcpHttp()).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it('disables MCP HTTP when requested by desktop runtime', () => {
+    vi.stubEnv('GITNEXUS_DISABLE_MCP_HTTP', '1');
+
+    expect(shouldEnableMcpHttp()).toBe(false);
+  });
+});
+
 describe('SPA fallback regex', () => {
   it('allows root path', () => {
     expect(SPA_FALLBACK_REGEX.test('/')).toBe(true);