Payload MCP Plugin

The Payload MCP Plugin is the official Model Context Protocol integration for Payload, the TypeScript-native headless CMS and app framework built on Next.js. It is published from the Payload monorepo as @payloadcms/plugin-mcp, and it turns an existing Payload instance into an MCP server rather than asking you to write one.

Installation is a single plugin entry — plugins: [mcpPlugin({})] in the Payload config — after which every configured collection and global is reachable through a set of generic tools served over Streamable HTTP at /api/mcp. The discovery and CRUD surface is stable: getConfigInfo lists the available slugs, getCollectionSchema and getGlobalSchema describe their shape, and findDocuments, createDocuments, updateDocument, deleteDocuments, findGlobal and updateGlobal operate on them. Individual tools are switched off with plain keys such as tools: { delete: false }.

Access control is the part worth understanding. Results are filtered by Payload's own access rules rather than by a parallel permission model, so an agent sees exactly what the authenticating user would see through the API. Tools, prompts and resources can additionally be gated with code-level access callbacks, and auth-enabled collections can opt into login, auth, forgotPassword, resetPassword, unlock and verify tools. The quick-start URL carries ?overrideAccess=true, which skips access control and is meant for local development only — outside development you remove it and send Payload authorization instead.

File uploads avoid the usual problem of stuffing binary data into tool arguments: getUploadInstructions hands back an HTTP request or a named provider instruction plus a file value, the client sends the file by that route, and then references it from createDocuments or updateDocument.

Beyond the built-ins you can define your own tools, prompts and resources with full TypeScript inference through defineTool, defineCollectionTool, defineGlobalTool and definePrompt, observe or rewrite any completed response with the hooks.afterToolCall hook, and replace the authentication strategy entirely via overrideGetAuthorizedMCP. MIT-licensed and fully open-source.