Spotify MCP server

Spotify MCP server allows Claude to control your Spotify account by enabling playback control, searching for music, getting information about tracks/albums/artists/playlists, and managing your queue. It's built on top of the spotipy-dev API and provides a seamless integration between Claude and Spotify.

Setup Requirements

Getting Spotify API Keys

1. Create an account on developer.spotify.com
2. Navigate to the dashboard
3. Create a new app with the following settings:
   • Redirect URI: http://localhost:8888 (you can choose a different port if needed)
   • APIs used: "Web Playback SDK" (recommended)
4. Note your Client ID and Client Secret for later use

Note: You need a Spotify Premium account to use the developer API features.

Installation

Clone the repository to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/varunneal/spotify-mcp.git

Configuration

Configure the MCP server in your Claude desktop configuration file:

On macOS:

Edit ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

On Windows:

Edit %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration (replace paths and credentials with your own):

"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://localhost:8888"
    }
}

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues getting the MCP server to work:

1. Ensure you're using an updated version of uv (version >=0.54 recommended)
2. Check that Claude has execution permissions for the project:

   chmod -R 755 /path/to/spotify_mcp
   

3. Verify that you have a Spotify Premium account, which is required for the developer API
4. During the first run, you may need to authenticate through your browser

Usage Features

With the Spotify MCP server properly configured, you can ask Claude to:

• Control playback (start, pause, skip)
• Search for tracks, albums, artists, or playlists
• Get information about specific music items
• Manage your Spotify queue

Example Commands

You can instruct Claude with natural language requests like:

• "Play 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on Spotify"
• "Pause my Spotify playback"
• "Skip to the next track"
• "Search for albums by The Beatles"
• "Add this song to my queue"
• "What's currently playing on Spotify?"

Debugging

For debugging the MCP server, use the MCP Inspector:

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

After launching, the Inspector will provide a URL to access in your browser for debugging.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "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://localhost:8888"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "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://localhost:8888"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "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://localhost:8888"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect