Musicbrainz MCP Server

MusicBrainz MCP — search/browse music metadata, cover art, and submit tags/ratings/collections. Exposed over MCP by the musicbrainz mcp server, that capability becomes something an assistant can invoke while it works, not something you go and do afterwards.

What it actually does

An MCP server for MusicBrainz, the open music encyclopedia. It gives Claude live access to MusicBrainz metadata — artists, releases, recordings, labels, works, and more — plus Cover Art Archive images, and (optionally) lets you submit your own tags, ratings, and collection edits.

Its toolset

Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:

• musicbrainz_search — Search any entity type with a Lucene query; returns ranked matches + MBIDs
• musicbrainz_lookup — Look up an entity by MBID, with inc subqueries for linked data
• musicbrainz_browse — List all entities linked to another (e.g. every release by an artist)
• musicbrainz_cover_art — Cover Art Archive image URLs for a release / release-group
• musicbrainz_resolve — Turn a pasted musicbrainz.org URL into its entity
• musicbrainz_healthcheck — Verify connectivity and whether OAuth writes are configured
• musicbrainz_submit_tags — Apply user tags to an entity on your account
• musicbrainz_submit_rating — Set your 0–100 rating for an entity
• musicbrainz_modify_collection — Add/remove entities in one of your collections

Adding it to your client

Installation goes through your MCP client rather than a global install: point it at npm on npm and it is fetched when the client starts. The copy-paste blocks for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are further down this page.

Configuration

You will need 3 environment variables: MUSICBRAINZ_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID, MUSICBRAINZ_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET, MUSICBRAINZ_OAUTH_REFRESH_TOKEN. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

When to reach for it

Among the developer tooling options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Musicbrainz's toolset — musicbrainz_search, musicbrainz_lookup, musicbrainz_browse and 6 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by chrischall; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

This entry was verified against Musicbrainz's own documentation before publication; SyncDev keeps the directory reviewed rather than auto-generated.

Caveats

• It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
• With 9 tools registered it takes up a noticeable share of the context window; turn it off in projects that never touch Musicbrainz.
• Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
• MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the musicbrainz mcp server does with a few real requests.