LlamaCloud MCP server for AI agents

LlamaCloud MCP Server connects to multiple managed indexes on LlamaCloud, allowing you to create specialized search tools for different datasets. Each tool is defined through command-line arguments and provides querying capabilities for its specific index.

Installation

To use the LlamaCloud MCP Server with your Model Context Protocol (MCP) client like Claude Desktop, Windsurf, or Cursor, you need to add the appropriate configuration to your MCP client configuration file.

Client Configuration

Add the following configuration to your MCP client's config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "llamacloud": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@llamaindex/mcp-server-llamacloud",
        "--index",
        "10k-SEC-Tesla",
        "--description",
        "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Tesla",
        "--topK",
        "5",
        "--index",
        "10k-SEC-Apple",
        "--description",
        "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Apple"
      ],
      "env": {
        "LLAMA_CLOUD_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

You'll need to replace <YOUR_API_KEY> with your actual LlamaCloud API key.

Config File Locations

The MCP configuration file for Claude can be found at:

MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Usage

Defining Tools

Each tool in the LlamaCloud MCP Server corresponds to a specific index in your LlamaCloud account. You define these tools through command-line arguments in your MCP client configuration.

To define a tool, you need to provide at least:

--index: The name of your LlamaCloud index
--description: A description of what the index contains

You can also optionally specify:

--topK: The maximum number of results to return (defaults to 5 if not specified)

Tool Definition Examples

Here's how to define multiple tools:

--index "10k-SEC-Tesla" --description "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Tesla" --topK 5
--index "10k-SEC-Apple" --description "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Apple"

This would create two separate tools:

One for searching Tesla SEC documents, returning up to 5 results
One for searching Apple SEC documents, using the default number of results

Environment Variables

You can set the following environment variables:

LLAMA_CLOUD_API_KEY: Required. Your API key for LlamaCloud.
LLAMA_CLOUD_PROJECT_NAME: Optional. Defaults to "Default" if not specified.

Using the Tools

Once configured, your MCP client will automatically detect and provide access to the defined tools. Each tool will be named automatically based on the index name (e.g., get_information_10k_SEC_Tesla).

To use a tool, you simply query it with the query parameter. For example, in Claude Desktop, you might ask:

"Use the Tesla SEC tool to find information about their revenue in 2023."

The tool will search the specified index and return the most relevant information from the documents.

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 "llamacloud" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@llamaindex/mcp-server-llamacloud","--index","10k-SEC-Tesla","--description","10k SEC documents from 2023 for Tesla","--topK","5","--index","10k-SEC-Apple","--description","10k SEC documents from 2023 for Apple"],"env":{"LLAMA_CLOUD_API_KEY":"<YOUR_API_KEY>"}}'

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": {
        "llamacloud": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@llamaindex/mcp-server-llamacloud",
                "--index",
                "10k-SEC-Tesla",
                "--description",
                "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Tesla",
                "--topK",
                "5",
                "--index",
                "10k-SEC-Apple",
                "--description",
                "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Apple"
            ],
            "env": {
                "LLAMA_CLOUD_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"
            }
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "llamacloud": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@llamaindex/mcp-server-llamacloud",
                "--index",
                "10k-SEC-Tesla",
                "--description",
                "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Tesla",
                "--topK",
                "5",
                "--index",
                "10k-SEC-Apple",
                "--description",
                "10k SEC documents from 2023 for Apple"
            ],
            "env": {
                "LLAMA_CLOUD_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect