ElevenLabs MCP server for AI agents

The ElevenLabs MCP server enables seamless integration with ElevenLabs' Text-to-Speech and audio processing capabilities through the Model Context Protocol. This server allows AI applications like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and others to generate speech, clone voices, transcribe audio, and perform other audio-related tasks directly within their interfaces.

Installation

Quick Setup with Claude Desktop

Get your API key from ElevenLabs (free tier offers 10k credits monthly)

Install uv package manager:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Configure Claude Desktop:

Go to Claude > Settings > Developer > Edit Config > claude_desktop_config.json
Add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ElevenLabs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["elevenlabs-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "<insert-your-api-key-here>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note for Windows users: Enable "Developer Mode" in Claude Desktop by clicking "Help" in the top-left hamburger menu and selecting "Enable Developer Mode".

Setup for Other MCP Clients

Install the package:
```
pip install elevenlabs-mcp
```

Generate the configuration:

python -m elevenlabs_mcp --api-key=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE --print

Copy the printed configuration to your MCP client's appropriate configuration directory.

Usage

Basic Prompts for Claude

You can ask Claude to perform various audio tasks using ElevenLabs capabilities:

"Create an AI agent that speaks like a film noir detective and can answer questions about classic movies"
"Generate three voice variations for a wise, ancient dragon character, then I will choose my favorite voice to add to my voice library"
"Convert this recording of my voice to sound like a medieval knight"
"Create a soundscape of a thunderstorm in a dense jungle with animals reacting to the weather"
"Turn this speech into text, identify different speakers, then convert it back using unique voices for each person"

⚠️ Note: Using these tools will consume ElevenLabs credits from your account.

Advanced Configuration

Setting a Base Path for File Operations

You can specify a base directory for file operations by adding the ELEVENLABS_MCP_BASE_PATH environment variable to your configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ElevenLabs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["elevenlabs-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>",
        "ELEVENLABS_MCP_BASE_PATH": "/path/to/your/directory"
      }
    }
  }
}

This tells the MCP server where to look for and save files when using relative paths.

Troubleshooting

Finding Log Files

If you encounter issues, check the log files located at:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp-server-elevenlabs.log
macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-elevenlabs.log

Common Issues

Timeouts with Certain Tools

Some ElevenLabs operations like voice design and audio isolation can take a long time. While these might trigger timeout errors in the MCP inspector dev mode, they should work correctly when using Claude.

"MCP ElevenLabs: spawn uvx ENOENT" Error

If you see this error, find the absolute path to the uvx executable:

which uvx

Then update your configuration with the absolute path:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ElevenLabs": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/uvx",
      "args": ["elevenlabs-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

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 "ElevenLabs" '{"command":"uvx","args":["elevenlabs-mcp"],"env":{"ELEVENLABS_API_KEY":"<insert-your-api-key-here>"}}'

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": {
        "ElevenLabs": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "elevenlabs-mcp"
            ],
            "env": {
                "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "<insert-your-api-key-here>"
            }
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "ElevenLabs": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "elevenlabs-mcp"
            ],
            "env": {
                "ELEVENLABS_API_KEY": "<insert-your-api-key-here>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect