mpv-mcp-server

MCP server for controlling mpv media player. Browse your music library, control playback, stream from YouTube, and download tracks — all from inside an MCP client like Claude Code.

Prerequisites

• mpv — media player (must be on your PATH, or set MPV_PATH)
• Node.js 22+
• yt-dlp (optional) — required for YouTube streaming and downloading
• ffmpeg (optional) — required for audio extraction, metadata reading (ffprobe), and tagging

Quick Start

Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mpv": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mpv-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Or add at user scope (available in all projects):

claude mcp add mpv --scope user -- npx -y mpv-mcp-server

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mpv": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mpv-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

With environment overrides

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mpv": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mpv-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "MPV_PATH": "/usr/local/bin/mpv",
        "MPV_MEDIA_DIRS": "/home/user/Music,/home/user/Podcasts",
        "MPV_DOWNLOAD_DIR": "/home/user/Music"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables. Everything has sensible defaults.

| Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | MPV_PATH | mpv | Path to mpv executable | | MPV_IPC_PATH | \\.\pipe\mpvpipe (Windows) or /tmp/mpv-ipc.sock (Unix) | IPC socket path | | MPV_MEDIA_DIRS | ~/Music,~/Videos | Comma-separated media directories to scan | | MPV_DOWNLOAD_DIR | ~/Downloads | Where downloaded files are saved |

Tools

Playback

| Tool | Description | |---|---| | mpv_play | Play a file by path or search term | | mpv_pause | Pause playback | | mpv_resume | Resume playback | | mpv_stop | Stop playback | | mpv_status | Get current playback status | | mpv_seek | Seek to position ("90", "1:30", "+10", "-30") | | mpv_volume | Get or set volume (0-150) |

Library

| Tool | Description | |---|---| | mpv_browse | List and search available media files | | mpv_playlist | Show current playlist | | mpv_add | Add a track to the playlist | | mpv_load_playlist | Load a playlist file (.m3u, .pls, .txt) | | mpv_next | Skip to next track | | mpv_prev | Go to previous track |

YouTube

| Tool | Description | |---|---| | mpv_youtube | Search YouTube and stream through mpv (supports append mode) | | mpv_download | Download from YouTube (audio or video) |

YouTube tools require yt-dlp on your PATH. Audio downloads also require ffmpeg.

Metadata

| Tool | Description | |---|---| | mpv_info | Get metadata for the current track or any file by search term | | mpv_tag | Write metadata tags (artist, title, album, genre, date, comment) to a file |

Both tools infer artist/title from the "Artist - Title" filename pattern. Requires ffmpeg (includes ffprobe).

How It Works

The server communicates with mpv via its JSON IPC protocol. On Windows this uses a named pipe, on macOS/Linux a Unix domain socket. If mpv isn't running, the server spawns it automatically in idle mode. The mpv process is detached, so it keeps playing even if the MCP server exits.

Platform Support

Developed and tested on Windows. macOS/Linux support is implemented but untested — issues and PRs welcome!

License

MIT