spotify-mcp MCP server

mcp-name: io.github.jamiew/spotify-mcp

MCP server connecting Claude with Spotify. This fork of varunneal/spotify-mcp adds smart-batching tools and advanced playlist features that optimize API usage.

This one runs locally over stdio. If you want a remote MCP server instead — hosted, OAuth in the browser, no local install for the people connecting to it — see jamiew/spotify-mcp-cloudflare: a sibling Spotify MCP on Cloudflare Workers that you can deploy yourself in a few minutes, and a decent worked example of remote-MCP auth on Workers generally.

Features

Core Functionality

• Playback Control: Start, pause, skip tracks, manage queue
• Search & Discovery: Find tracks, albums, artists, playlists with pagination
• Real-time State: Live user profile and playback status
• Resources: Read user, playback, track, playlist, artist, and album state by URI

Modern MCP Protocol

• Server instructions: whole-surface guidance ships once per session instead of per tool
• Structured output: every tool returns a typed schema, not a bare dict
• Tool annotations & icons: read-only/destructive hints, titles, and a Spotify glyph
• Progress notifications: live updates while paginating large playlists
• Elicitation: destructive playlist removals ask for confirmation on clients that support it

Enhanced Playlist Tools (New in this fork)

• Smart Batch Operations: Add/remove up to 100 tracks in single API calls
• Large Playlist Support: Efficiently handle playlists with 1000+ tracks using pagination
• Advanced Playlist Management: Create, modify details, reorder tracks, bulk track operations
• API-Optimized Workflows: Intelligent batching reduces API calls by 60-80%

Tools

Tool	Does
get_me	The signed-in user's profile
search_music	Search tracks, albums, artists or playlists, with filters
get_track_info	Track details, batched up to 50 per call
get_artist_info	Artist details plus their top tracks
get_album_info	Album details plus its track list
get_playback_state	What's playing now: track, device, progress, shuffle, repeat
control_playback	Play, pause, next, previous, seek, volume, shuffle, repeat
list_devices	Available Spotify Connect devices
transfer_playback	Move playback to another device
get_queue	Now playing plus the upcoming queue
add_to_queue	Queue a track
get_user_playlists	The user's playlists, paginated
get_playlist_info	Playlist metadata without its tracks
get_playlist_tracks	Playlist tracks, paginated to any size
create_playlist	Create a playlist
modify_playlist_details	Rename a playlist or change its description/visibility
add_tracks_to_playlist	Add up to 100 tracks in one call
remove_tracks_from_playlist	Remove tracks (confirms first where the client supports it)
reorder_playlist_tracks	Move a block of tracks to a new position
unfollow_playlist	Unfollow a playlist — how Spotify deletes your own
get_saved_tracks	Liked Songs, paginated
save_tracks	Like tracks
remove_saved_tracks	Unlike tracks
get_top_items	Top artists or tracks over a time range
get_recently_played	Recently played tracks with timestamps

tests/test_tool_metadata.py fails if this table drifts from the code, or if a tool ships without a title, icon and behaviour annotations.

Installation

Requires a Spotify Premium account and uv >= 0.54.

1. Get Spotify API keys

1. Create an app at developer.spotify.com/dashboard.
2. Add redirect URI http://127.0.0.1:8888 — it must match exactly what you set below.
3. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret.

2. Add the server to your MCP client

Every client runs the same command — uvx spotify-mcp-jamiew — with your three Spotify env vars. No clone, no local path.

Standard config (works in most clients):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spotify": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["spotify-mcp-jamiew"],
      "env": {
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID": "your_client_id",
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET": "your_client_secret",
        "SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI": "http://127.0.0.1:8888"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add spotify \
  -e SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id \
  -e SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret \
  -e SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI=http://127.0.0.1:8888 \
  -- uvx spotify-mcp-jamiew

Add -s user to install it globally across all projects. Verify with claude mcp list.

Claude Desktop

Add the standard config above to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows), then fully restart Claude Desktop.

Codex CLI

codex mcp add spotify \
  --env SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id \
  --env SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret \
  --env SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI=http://127.0.0.1:8888 \
  -- uvx spotify-mcp-jamiew

Or add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.spotify]
command = "uvx"
args = ["spotify-mcp-jamiew"]

[mcp_servers.spotify.env]
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID = "your_client_id"
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET = "your_client_secret"
SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI = "http://127.0.0.1:8888"

Hermes

Add to ~/.hermes/config.yaml, then run /reload-mcp (or restart Hermes):

mcp_servers:
  spotify:
    command: uvx
    args: [spotify-mcp-jamiew]
    env:
      SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID: your_client_id
      SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET: your_client_secret
      SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI: http://127.0.0.1:8888

OpenClaw

Add the standard config above to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json (under mcpServers), then openclaw gateway restart.

Other clients (mcp.json)

Most MCP clients read a JSON file with an mcpServers block — drop the standard config above into it.

Using something else? Paste this to your agent:

Install the spotify-mcp MCP server from https://github.com/jamiew/spotify-mcp — it's on PyPI as spotify-mcp-jamiew, run it with uvx spotify-mcp-jamiew, and set env vars SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID, SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET, and SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI=http://127.0.0.1:8888.

Run from source (local dev)

git clone https://github.com/jamiew/spotify-mcp.git
cd spotify-mcp
uv sync

Then point your client at the checkout:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spotify": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/path/to/spotify-mcp", "run", "spotify-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID": "your_client_id",
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET": "your_client_secret",
        "SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI": "http://127.0.0.1:8888"
      }
    }
  }
}

To run the latest unpublished commit without cloning: uvx --from git+https://github.com/jamiew/spotify-mcp.git spotify-mcp.

On first use the server opens a browser for Spotify OAuth; the token is cached locally for later runs.

Usage Examples

• "Create a chill study playlist with 20 tracks" → Search + playlist creation + bulk track addition
• "Show me the first 50 tracks from my 'Liked Songs'" → Pagination for large playlists
• "Find similar artists to Radiohead and add their top tracks to my queue" → Search + artist info + queue management

Development

Built with the FastMCP framework — focused single-purpose tools spanning playback, search, queue, and playlist management, with type-safe APIs and comprehensive test coverage.

Debug with MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv --directory /path/to/spotify_mcp run spotify-mcp