Pipecat MCP Server

Pipecat MCP Server gives your AI agents a voice using Pipecat. It should work with any MCP-compatible client:

The Pipecat MCP Server exposes voice-related and screen capture tools to MCP-compatible clients, but it does not itself provide microphone or speaker access.

Audio input/output is handled by a separate audio/video transport, such as:

• Pipecat Playground (local browser UI)
• Daily (WebRTC room)
• Phone providers (Twilio, Telnyx, etc.)

MCP clients like Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex control the agent, but they are not audio devices. To hear, speak or see, you must connect via one of the audio transports.

pipecat-mcp-server.mp4

🧭 Getting started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10 or later
• uv package manager

By default, the voice agent uses local models (no API keys required): Faster Whisper for speech-to-text and Kokoro for text-to-speech. The Whisper models are approximately 1.5 GB and are downloaded automatically on the first connection, so the initial startup may take a moment.

Installation

uv tool install pipecat-ai-mcp-server

This will install the pipecat-mcp-server tool.

If you want to use different services or modify the Pipecat pipeline somehow, you will need to clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat-mcp-server.git

and install your local version with:

uv tool install -e /path/to/repo/pipecat-mcp-server

Running the server

Start the server:

pipecat-mcp-server

This will make the Pipecat MCP Server available at http://localhost:9090/mcp.

Auto-approving permissions

For hands-free voice conversations, you will need to auto-approve tool permissions. Otherwise, your agent will prompt for confirmation, which interrupts the conversation flow.

⚠️ Warning: Enabling broad permissions is at your own risk.

Installing the talk skill (recommended)

The talk skill provides a better voice conversation experience. It asks for verbal confirmation before making changes to files, adding a layer of safety when using broad permissions.

If you're using Claude Code, install the marketplace and plugin:

/plugin marketplace add pipecat-ai/skills
/plugin install pipecat-mcp-server@pipecat-skills

Alternatively, just tell your agent something like Let's have a voice conversation. In this case, the agent won't ask for verbal confirmation before making changes.

🖥️ Screen Capture & Analysis

Screen capture lets you stream your screen (or a specific window) to your configured transport, and ask the agent to help with what it sees.

For example:

• "capture my browser window" — starts streaming that window
• "what's causing this error?" — the agent analyzes the screen and helps debug
• "how does this UI look?" — get feedback on your design

Supported platforms:

• macOS — uses ScreenCaptureKit for true window-level capture (not affected by overlapping windows)
• Linux (X11) — uses Xlib for window and full-screen capture

💻 MCP Client: Claude Code

Adding the MCP server

Register the MCP server:

claude mcp add pipecat --transport http http://localhost:9090/mcp --scope user

Scope options:

• local: Stored in ~/.claude.json, applies only to your project
• user: Stored in ~/.claude.json, applies to all projects
• project: Stored in .mcp.json in your project directory

Auto-approving permissions

Create .claude/settings.local.json in your project directory:

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash",
      "Read",
      "Edit",
      "Write",
      "WebFetch",
      "WebSearch",
      "mcp__pipecat__*"
    ]
  }
}

This grants permissions for bash commands, file operations, web fetching and searching, and all Pipecat MCP tools without prompting. See available tools if you need to grant more permissions.

Starting a voice conversation

1. Install the talk skill (see above).
2. Start the Pipecat MCP Server.
3. Connect to an audio transport (see 🗣️ Connecting to the voice agent below).
4. Run /talk.

💻 MCP Client: Cursor

Adding the MCP server

Register the MCP server by editing ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipecat": {
      "url": "http://localhost:9090/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Auto-approving permissions

Go to the Auto-Run agent settings and configure it to Run Everything.

Starting a voice conversation

1. Install the talk skill into .claude/skills/talk/SKILL.md (Cursor supports the Claude skills location).
2. Start the Pipecat MCP Server.
3. Connect to an audio transport (see 🗣️ Connecting to the voice agent below).
4. In a new Cursor agent, run /talk.

💻 MCP Client: OpenAI Codex

Adding the MCP server

Register the MCP server:

codex mcp add pipecat --url http://localhost:9090/mcp

Auto-approving permissions

If you start codex inside a version controlled project, you will be asked if you allow Codex to work on the folder without approval. Say Yes, which adds the following to ~/.codex/config.toml.

[projects."/path/to/your/project"]
trust_level = "trusted"

Starting a voice conversation

1. Install the talk skill into .codex/skills/talk/SKILL.md.
2. Start the Pipecat MCP Server.
3. Connect to an audio transport (see 🗣️ Connecting to the voice agent below).
4. Run $talk.

🗣️ Connecting to the voice agent

Once the voice agent starts, you can connect using different methods depending on how the server is configured.

Pipecat Playground (default)

When no arguments are specified to the pipecat-mcp-server command, the server uses Pipecat's local playground. Connect by opening http://localhost:7860 in your browser.

You can also run an ngrok tunnel that you can connect to remotely:

ngrok http --url=your-proxy.ngrok.app 7860

Daily Prebuilt

You can also use Daily and access your agent through a Daily room, which is convenient because you can then access from anywhere without tunnels.

First, install the server with the Daily dependency:

uv tool install pipecat-ai-mcp-server[daily]

Then, set the DAILY_API_KEY environment variable to your Daily API key and DAILY_ROOM_URL to your desired Daily room URL and pass the -d argument to pipecat-mcp-server.

export DAILY_API_KEY=your-daily-api-key
export DAILY_ROOM_URL=your-daily-room

pipecat-mcp-server -d

Connect by opening your Daily room URL (e.g., https://yourdomain.daily.co/room) in your browser. Daily Prebuilt provides a ready-to-use video/audio interface.

Phone call

To connect via phone call, pass -t <provider> -x <your-proxy> where <provider> is one of twilio, telnyx, exotel, or plivo, and <your-proxy> is your ngrok tunnel domain (e.g., your-proxy.ngrok.app).

First, start your ngrok tunnel:

ngrok http --url=your-proxy.ngrok.app 7860

Then, run the Pipecat MCP server with your ngrok URL and the required environment variables for your chosen telephony provider.

Provider	Environment variables
Twilio	TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
Telnyx	TELNYX_API_KEY
Exotel	EXOTEL_API_KEY, EXOTEL_API_TOKEN
Plivo	PLIVO_AUTH_ID, PLIVO_AUTH_TOKEN

Twilio

export TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=your-twilio-account-sid
export TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=your-twilio-auth-token

pipecat-mcp-server -t twilio -x your-proxy.ngrok.app

Configure your provider's phone number to point to your ngrok URL, then call your number to connect.

📚 What's Next?

• Customize services: Edit agent.py to use different STT/TTS providers
• Change transport: Configure for Twilio, WebRTC, or other transports
• Add to your project: Use this as a template for voice-enabled MCP tools
• Learn more: Check out Pipecat's docs for advanced features
• Get help: Join Pipecat's Discord to connect with the community