Materials Project MCP

A fastmcp-based tool for writing prompts against data in the Materials Project database.

Installation

You can install the package from source:

pip install -e .

Or using uv:

uv pip install -e .

Usage

You can use the CLI:

mp-mcp

Or import in your Python code:

from materials_project_mcp.main import create_mcp

mcp = create_mcp()
mcp.run()

API Key Setup

The Materials Project API requires an API key. You can set up your API key in several ways:

Pass it directly to the MPRester:
from mp_api.client import MPRester with MPRester("your_api_key_here") as mpr: # do stuff with mpr
Set it as an environment variable:
export MP_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

Example

Here's a simple example that demonstrates how to use the MCP tools directly:

import os
import json
from materials_project_mcp.tools import (
    get_materials_with_elements,
    get_material_details,
    find_materials_by_formula
)

# Set your API key
os.environ["MP_API_KEY"] = "your_api_key_here"
# Or load it from a file
# with open("~/materials_project_api.key", "r") as f:
#     os.environ["MP_API_KEY"] = f.read().strip()

# Function to print JSON data in a readable format
def print_json(data):
    print(json.dumps(data, indent=2))

# Find materials containing Fe and O
print("\n=== Finding materials containing Fe and O ===")
materials = get_materials_with_elements(
    elements=["Fe", "O"],
    max_records=3
)
print_json(materials)

# Get details for a specific material
if materials:
    material_id = materials[0]["material_id"]
    print(f"\n=== Getting details for material {material_id} ===")
    details = get_material_details(material_id)
    print_json(details)

# Find materials with a specific formula
print("\n=== Finding materials with formula Fe2O3 ===")
formula_materials = find_materials_by_formula(
    formula="Fe2O3",
    max_records=3
)
print_json(formula_materials)

Development

Local Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/justaddcoffee/materials-project-mcp.git
cd materials-project-mcp

# Install development dependencies
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

Running Tests

pytest

Install Server

HTTP connection URL

security – no known vulnerabilities

license - permissive license

quality - confirmed to work

How are these scores calculated?

Tools

A tool for querying and analyzing materials data from the Materials Project database using natural language prompts, enabling materials scientists to explore properties, structures, and compositions of materials through conversational interfaces.

Related Resources

Reddit Discussion about this server

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