Vectara MCP server

Vectara MCP Server provides a powerful integration with the Model Context Protocol, allowing AI systems to access Vectara's Trusted RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) platform. It enables seamless querying and retrieval of information from Vectara corpora, significantly reducing hallucinations in AI responses.

Installation

You can install the Vectara MCP server directly from PyPI:

pip install vectara-mcp

Available Tools

ask_vectara

This tool runs a RAG query using Vectara, returning search results with a generated response.

Required parameters:

• query: The user query to run
• corpus_keys: List of Vectara corpus keys to use for the search
• api_key: Your Vectara API key

Optional parameters:

• n_sentences_before: Number of sentences before the answer to include (default: 2)
• n_sentences_after: Number of sentences after the answer to include (default: 2)
• lexical_interpolation: Amount of lexical interpolation to use (default: 0.005)
• max_used_search_results: Maximum number of search results to use (default: 10)
• generation_preset_name: Name of the generation preset (default: "vectara-summary-table-md-query-ext-jan-2025-gpt-4o")
• response_language: Language of the response (default: "eng")

search_vectara

This tool runs a semantic search query using Vectara, without generating a summary response.

Required parameters:

• query: The user query to run
• corpus_keys: List of Vectara corpus keys to use for the search
• api_key: Your Vectara API key

Optional parameters:

• n_sentences_before: Number of sentences before the answer to include (default: 2)
• n_sentences_after: Number of sentences after the answer to include (default: 2)
• lexical_interpolation: Amount of lexical interpolation to use (default: 0.005)

Configuration with Claude Desktop

To integrate Vectara MCP with Claude Desktop, add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Vectara": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "tool",
        "run",
        "vectara-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using with Claude Desktop App

After installation and configuration:

1. Completely close and reopen the Claude desktop app
2. Look for the hammer icon in the bottom left of the app, indicating available MCP tools
3. Click the hammer icon to see more details about the Vectara tools

On first use, Claude will prompt you for your Vectara API key and corpus key(s). After providing these credentials, you can immediately start using the tools.

Example Usage

Try these examples with a Vectara corpus containing information from the Vectara website:

Using ask_vectara:

ask-vectara Who is Amr Awadallah?

Using search_vectara:

search-vectara events in NYC?

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 "Vectara" '{"command":"uv","args":["tool","run","vectara-mcp"]}'

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": {
        "Vectara": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "tool",
                "run",
                "vectara-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 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": {
        "Vectara": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "tool",
                "run",
                "vectara-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect