FRED Economic MCP Server

A powerful Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing access to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) through Claude and other MCP-compatible clients.

🌟 Features

📊 Comprehensive Data Access: Access to 800,000+ economic time series
🔍 Smart Search: Find economic indicators by keyword or category
📈 Historical Analysis: Retrieve up to 100,000 observations per series
⚡ High Performance: Efficient async operations with proper error handling
🎯 Economic Dashboard: Pre-configured key economic indicators
🔄 Multi-Series Support: Compare multiple economic series simultaneously

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

Python 3.8 or higher
FRED API key (free from FRED)

Installation

Download the server file:
- Download fred_economic_server.py from this repository
Install dependencies:

pip install httpx python-mcp python-dotenv

Get your FRED API key:
- Visit FRED API Key Registration
- Sign up for a free account
- Generate your API key
Set up environment:

export FRED_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration (claude_desktop_config.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "fred-economic": { "command": "python", "args": ["path/to/fred_economic_server.py"], "env": { "FRED_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here" } } } }

🛠️ Available Tools

Tool	Description	Example Usage
`get_fred_data`	Get economic data by series ID	GDP, unemployment, inflation
`get_fred_historical`	Retrieve 4+ years of data	Long-term trend analysis
`search_fred`	Find series by keyword	Search "housing prices"
`fred_dashboard`	Key economic indicators	GDP, unemployment, rates
`get_multiple_series`	Compare multiple series	GDP vs unemployment

📊 Example Queries

Basic Data Retrieval

Ask Claude: "Get the latest GDP data" Uses: get_fred_data("GDP")

Historical Analysis

Ask Claude: "Show me 10 years of unemployment data" Uses: get_fred_historical("UNRATE", years=10)

Economic Research

Ask Claude: "Compare inflation and unemployment over the last 5 years" Uses: get_multiple_series(["CPIAUCSL", "UNRATE"])

📈 Common Economic Series

Indicator	Series ID	Description
GDP	`GDP`	Gross Domestic Product
Unemployment	`UNRATE`	Unemployment Rate
Inflation	`CPIAUCSL`	Consumer Price Index
Fed Funds Rate	`FEDFUNDS`	Federal Funds Rate
10-Year Treasury	`DGS10`	10-Year Treasury Rate
S&P 500	`SP500`	S&P 500 Index