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Alpaca MCP Server

Alpaca MCP Server

by Alpaca Markets
Released
v2.3.1
MIT
Repository Docs
Payments & Commerce

Summary

Alpaca's official MCP server for trading stocks, options and crypto, plus market data and portfolio analysis, in plain language.

Features

  • Place and cancel stock, options and crypto orders from natural language
  • Portfolio history, balances, margin detail and account activity
  • Market data: bars, quotes, trades, snapshots, options Greeks and implied volatility
  • News, dividends, splits, market calendar and asset/contract lookup
  • Paper trading enabled by default (ALPACA_PAPER_TRADE)
  • ALPACA_TOOLSETS filters which tool categories are exposed

Installation

Set up this MCP server in your favorite AI agent — copy a ready-made configuration below.

Any MCP-compatible agent

Most agents (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, and more) read a standard mcpServers configuration.

  1. Open your agent's MCP configuration file.
  2. Merge the snippet below into it, filling in the environment variables with your own values.
  3. Restart the agent — the "Alpaca MCP Server" tools will be available.
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alpaca-mcp-server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "alpaca-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "ALPACA_API_KEY": "your_alpaca_api_key",
        "ALPACA_SECRET_KEY": "your_alpaca_secret_key",
        "ALPACA_PAPER_TRADE": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

Description

Alpaca's official Model Context Protocol server puts the broker's Trading and Market Data APIs behind MCP tools, so an assistant like Claude, Cursor or VS Code Copilot can check a portfolio, pull historical bars and place orders through conversation instead of through hand-written API calls.

The tool surface is unusually broad for a finance MCP server. Account and portfolio tools cover balances, margin, account configuration, portfolio history and activity logs. Order tools place and cancel equity, crypto and options orders and read back their status. Position tools list, close and liquidate holdings and exercise options contracts. On the data side there are bars, quotes, trades and snapshots for stocks, crypto and options — including Greeks and implied volatility — alongside news articles, corporate-action announcements such as dividends and splits, the market calendar, asset and option-contract lookup, watchlist management, fixed-income bond quotes and short-sale locate requests. A documentation toolset even lets the agent search Alpaca's own API reference while it works.

It runs on Python 3.10+ via uvx alpaca-mcp-server and authenticates with ALPACA_API_KEY and ALPACA_SECRET_KEY. The setting that matters most is ALPACA_PAPER_TRADE, which defaults to true: out of the box the server trades against a free paper account, and moving to real money is a deliberate change rather than an accident. ALPACA_TOOLSETS narrows the exposed tools to the categories you want, which is a sensible way to keep order placement out of a read-only research setup.

MIT licensed, currently at version 2.3.1. Treat it as what it is — software that can move real money — and keep it on paper trading until you have watched how your agent behaves.

Covered in the Weekly

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