Spotify MCP Server

Community MCP server for the Spotify Web API. Search, playback control, queue management, and full playlist and album operations.

Entertainment by marcelmarais (community) OAuth2 active

GitHub Docs

Overview

Spotify does not publish an official MCP server. The most actively maintained community implementation is marcelmarais/spotify-mcp-server, a lightweight Node.js MCP server that wraps the Spotify Web API and lets AI assistants like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code (via Cline) control playback and manage music libraries through natural language.

The server exposes roughly 30 tools across four categories: read operations (search, now playing, playlists, recently played, saved tracks, queue, devices), playback and create operations (play, pause, skip, queue, volume, create playlist, add tracks), album operations (get album, get album tracks, save/remove album, check saved), and playlist operations (get, update, remove tracks, reorder). Authentication uses Spotify OAuth 2.0 with automatic refresh token rotation handled by the server.

Because it relies on Spotify's standard Web API, a Spotify Premium account is required for most playback control endpoints (volume, transfer playback, etc.) and a registered Spotify Developer application is needed for OAuth credentials.

Tools

Tool	Description
`searchSpotify`	Search Spotify for tracks, albums, artists, or playlists
`getNowPlaying`	Return the currently playing track for the authenticated user
`getMyPlaylists`	List playlists owned or followed by the user
`getPlaylistTracks`	Get tracks in a specific playlist
`getRecentlyPlayed`	List recently played tracks
`getUsersSavedTracks`	Get the user's Liked Songs
`removeUsersSavedTracks`	Remove tracks from Liked Songs (max 40 per call)
`getQueue`	Return the current playback queue
`getAvailableDevices`	List Spotify Connect devices available for playback
`playMusic`	Start or transfer playback of a track, album, artist, or playlist
`pausePlayback`	Pause current playback
`resumePlayback`	Resume paused playback
`skipToNext`	Skip to the next track
`skipToPrevious`	Skip to the previous track
`addToQueue`	Add a track to the playback queue
`setVolume`	Set playback volume (Premium only)
`adjustVolume`	Increase or decrease volume by a delta (Premium only)
`createPlaylist`	Create a new playlist for the user
`addTracksToPlaylist`	Add tracks to an existing playlist
`getAlbums`	Get details for one or more albums (max 20)
`getAlbumTracks`	List tracks for a given album
`saveOrRemoveAlbumForUser`	Save or remove an album from the user's library
`checkUsersSavedAlbums`	Check whether albums are saved in the user's library
`getPlaylist`	Get details for a specific playlist
`updatePlaylist`	Update playlist name, description, or visibility
`removeTracksFromPlaylist`	Remove tracks from a playlist (max 100 per call)
`reorderPlaylistItems`	Reorder tracks within a playlist

Setup Guide

Prerequisites

Node.js v16 or higher
Spotify Premium account (required for playback control endpoints)
A registered Spotify Developer application at developer.spotify.com to obtain a Client ID, Client Secret, and Redirect URI

Install

git clone https://github.com/marcelmarais/spotify-mcp-server.git
cd spotify-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

Configure credentials

Create spotify-config.json in the repo root:

{
  "clientId": "your-client-id",
  "clientSecret": "your-client-secret",
  "redirectUri": "http://127.0.0.1:8888/callback"
}

Run the auth helper, log in to Spotify in the browser, and tokens will be written back into the config file:

npm run auth

Claude Desktop config

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spotify": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/spotify-mcp-server/build/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

The server automatically refreshes access tokens using the stored refresh token. Re-running npm run auth is only needed if the refresh token is revoked.

Use Cases

Voice-style playback control: "play the new Bon Iver album on my Living Room speaker," "skip this track," "set volume to 30%"
Build and curate playlists from natural language prompts, including creating a playlist, searching for matching tracks, and adding them in one flow
Programmatically clean up the music library: remove duplicates from Liked Songs, prune old playlists, or reorder a playlist by energy
Discover what is currently playing and queue follow-up tracks via the AI assistant without leaving the editor or chat
Audit listening behavior by pulling recently played tracks and summarizing patterns over time

Example Prompts

"Search Spotify for lo-fi study playlists and start playing the top result on my laptop."
"Create a playlist called Morning Focus and add 20 instrumental tracks from artists similar to Nils Frahm."
"What's currently playing, and what are the next three tracks in the queue?"
"Remove every track by Artist X from my Liked Songs."
"Reorder my Workout playlist so the highest-tempo tracks come first."

Pros

Broad tool coverage (about 30 tools) spanning search, playback, queue, library, albums, and playlist editing
Automatic OAuth refresh token handling, so re-auth is rarely needed
Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code (Cline) out of the box
Actively maintained relative to other community Spotify MCP projects

Limitations

Not an official Spotify project; community maintained with no SLA
Volume and several playback endpoints require a Spotify Premium account
Hard per-call limits inherited from the Spotify API (40 tracks per Liked Songs removal, 20 albums per lookup, 100 tracks per playlist removal)

Alternatives

varunneal/spotify-mcp: Python implementation built on Spotipy, installable via uvx. Less actively maintained.
thebigredgeek/spotify-mcp-server: Alternative Node implementation focused on robust token management.
iceener/spotify-streamable-mcp-server: Streamable HTTP MCP server variant written in TypeScript and Hono.