MCP Transport

Overview

pipecat-mcp-transport serves your Pipecat bot as an MCP server, so any agent with an MCP client, for example Claude Code, talks to the bot. The bot keeps its pipeline, its tools and its history. This is the server side of MCP. To call MCP tools from a bot, see MCPClient. The server exposes two tools, start and chat, over Streamable HTTP. start runs your bot function and returns a session handle. chat appends a line to that session’s context, runs the LLM, and returns the whole reply as one text block. One handle is one session: one pipeline, one context, one history. The transport pushes LLMConfigureOutputFrame(skip_tts=True) when the pipeline starts, so every turn costs no TTS request and a voice bot needs no second code path.

Source Repository

Transport, server, example bot and tests

PyPI Package

The pipecat-mcp-transport package on PyPI

Streamable HTTP

The MCP transport this server speaks

Installation

pip install pipecat-mcp-transport

Prerequisites

MCP client

Any client that speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP, for example Claude Code. The transport needs no account and no API key of its own.

Required Environment Variables

None for the transport. The services in your bot keep their own keys, for example OPENAI_API_KEY for the OpenAI services in the example bot.

Configuration

McpBotServer takes your bot function and serves it.

parameter	default	meaning
`name`	`pipecat`	Name the server reports to the client.
`host`	`127.0.0.1`	Bind address. The default binds localhost only.
`port`	`7870`	Bind port.
`path`	`/mcp`	Path of the Streamable HTTP endpoint.
`params`	`TransportParams`	Builds the transport parameters of one session.
`transport_security`	`None`	A `TransportSecuritySettings` of the MCP SDK. `None` takes the loopback setting of the SDK.
`sessions`	`32`	Cap on open sessions. A `start` call over it returns a tool error.
`handle_seconds`	`300`	Seconds a session lives with no `chat` call.
`sweep_seconds`	`30`	Seconds between two sweeps of the session table.

Usage

Your bot takes its transport from the runner arguments. That branch is the only line the transport adds.

from pipecat_mcp_transport import McpBotServer, McpRunnerArguments


async def bot(runner_args):
    if isinstance(runner_args, McpRunnerArguments):
        transport = runner_args.transport
    else:
        transport = await create_transport(runner_args, {"webrtc": voice_params})

    pipeline = Pipeline([...])
    worker = PipelineWorker(
        pipeline, idle_timeout_secs=runner_args.pipeline_idle_timeout_secs
    )
    runner = WorkerRunner(handle_sigint=runner_args.handle_sigint)
    await runner.add_workers(worker)
    await runner.run()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    McpBotServer(bot).run()

Point a client at the URL the server prints:

claude mcp add --transport http pipecat http://127.0.0.1:7870/mcp

Tools

tool	arguments	returns
`start`	none	the handle of a new conversation
`chat`	`handle`, `line`	the whole reply to that line

An empty line starts no turn and returns the reply of the turn in flight. A turn that one call read is gone, so the next empty line returns an empty block.

Limitations

The reply arrives as one text block after the turn, with no token streaming.
A chat call carries no audio block and no image block.
A session lives in one process. A second replica needs sticky routing on the handle.
The server binds 127.0.0.1 by default and the handle is a bearer secret. Put an authenticating proxy in front of an open bind.

The README states the turn end rule, the session lifetime, the transport_security setting and the full list of limits.

Compatibility

Tested with pipecat 1.10.0 and mcp 2.2.0 on Python 3.12, 3.13 and 3.14.

Get Started

Pipecat Server

Client SDKs

Pipecat Flows

Pipecat Cloud

CLI

Pipecat Context Hub

Overview

Source Repository

PyPI Package

Streamable HTTP

Installation

Prerequisites

MCP client

Required Environment Variables

Configuration

Usage

Tools

Limitations

Compatibility

​Overview

Source Repository

PyPI Package

Streamable HTTP

​Installation

​Prerequisites

​MCP client

​Required Environment Variables

​Configuration

​Usage

​Tools

​Limitations

​Compatibility

Overview

Installation

Prerequisites

MCP client

Required Environment Variables

Configuration

Usage

Tools

Limitations

Compatibility