Alpaca Trading MCP server

The Alpaca MCP Server enables LLMs like Claude to interact with the Alpaca trading API through natural language. This integration allows you to trade stocks, check positions, fetch market data, and manage your account simply by having a conversation with your AI assistant.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Alpaca API keys
• Claude for Desktop or another MCP client

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/alpaca-mcp.git
   cd alpaca-mcp
   

2. Install the required packages:

   pip install mcp alpaca-py python-dotenv
   

3. Create a .env file with your Alpaca API credentials:

   API_KEY_ID=your_alpaca_api_key
   API_SECRET_KEY=your_alpaca_secret_key
   

Setting Up the Server

Running the MCP Server

Start the server by running:

python alpaca_mcp_server.py

Configuring Claude for Desktop

1. Open Claude for Desktop
2. Go to Settings
3. Click on "Developer" and then "Edit Config"
4. Add the server configuration to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alpaca": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/alpaca_mcp_server.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "API_KEY_ID": "your_alpaca_api_key",
        "API_SECRET_KEY": "your_alpaca_secret_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

5. Save and restart Claude for Desktop

Using the Alpaca MCP Server

Available Trading Tools

The server provides access to these trading functions:

• Account Information: Check balances and account status
• Position Management: View all current positions in your portfolio
• Market Data: Get real-time quotes and historical price data
• Order Placement: Create market and limit orders
• Order Management: List, track, and cancel orders

Example Queries

Once connected to Claude, you can ask questions like:

• "What's my current account balance and buying power?"
• "Show me my current positions"
• "Get the latest quote for AAPL"
• "Show me the price history for TSLA over the last 10 days"
• "Buy 5 shares of MSFT at market price"
• "Sell 10 shares of AMZN with a limit price of $130"
• "Cancel all my open orders"

Important Settings

By default, the server uses Alpaca's paper trading. To use real money trading, change paper=True to paper=False in the TradingClient initialization.

Security Considerations

This MCP server has access to your Alpaca account and can execute real trades. Always carefully review Claude's suggestions before approving any trading actions.

How to add this MCP server to 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 > MCP and click "Add new global MCP server".

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

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "cursor-rules-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "cursor-rules-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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 explictly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.