Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing universal access to all 800,000+ Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) time series through three powerful tools.

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Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install Federal Reserve Economic Data Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server.git cd fred-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install

3. Build the project:

   pnpm build

Configuration

This server requires a FRED® API key. You can obtain one from the FRED® website.

Install the server, for example, on Claude Desktop, modify the claude_desktop_config.json file and add the following configuration:

Using Docker

You can also run the FRED MCP Server using Docker. Add this configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

Replace <your-key-here> with your actual FRED API key.

Available Tools

This MCP server provides three comprehensive tools to access all 800,000+ FRED® economic data series:

fred_browse

Description: Browse FRED's complete catalog through categories, releases, or sources.

Parameters:

• browse_type (required): Type of browsing - "categories", "releases", "sources", "category_series", "release_series"

• category_id (optional): Category ID for browsing subcategories or series within a category

• release_id (optional): Release ID for browsing series within a release

• limit (optional): Maximum number of results (default: 50)

• offset (optional): Number of results to skip for pagination

• order_by (optional): Field to order results by

• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"

fred_search

Description: Search for FRED economic data series by keywords, tags, or filters.

Parameters:

• search_text (optional): Text to search for in series titles and descriptions

• search_type (optional): "full_text" or "series_id"

• tag_names (optional): Comma-separated list of tag names to filter by

• exclude_tag_names (optional): Comma-separated list of tag names to exclude

• limit (optional): Maximum number of results (default: 25)

• offset (optional): Number of results to skip for pagination

• order_by (optional): Field to order by (e.g., "popularity", "last_updated")

• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"

• filter_variable (optional): Filter by "frequency", "units", or "seasonal_adjustment"

• filter_value (optional): Value to filter the variable by

fred_get_series

Description: Retrieve data for any FRED series by its ID with support for transformations and date ranges.

Parameters:

• series_id (required): The FRED series ID (e.g., "GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL")

• observation_start (optional): Start date in YYYY-MM-DD format

• observation_end (optional): End date in YYYY-MM-DD format

• limit (optional): Maximum number of observations

• offset (optional): Number of observations to skip

• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"

• units (optional): Data transformation:

  • "lin" (levels/no transformation)

  • "chg" (change from previous period)

  • "ch1" (change from year ago)

  • "pch" (percent change)

  • "pc1" (percent change from year ago)

  • "pca" (compounded annual rate of change)

  • "cch" (continuously compounded rate of change)

  • "log" (natural log)

• frequency (optional): Frequency aggregation ("d", "w", "m", "q", "a")

• aggregation_method (optional): "avg" (average), "sum", or "eop" (end of period)

Example Usage

With these three tools, you can:

• Browse all economic categories and discover available data

• Search for specific indicators by keywords or tags

• Retrieve any of the 800,000+ series with custom transformations

• Access real-time economic data including GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, and more

Social Media Shoutouts 📣

We're grateful for the community support! Here are some mentions from amazing people:

Testing

See TESTING.md for more details.

License ⚖️

This open-source project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). This means:

• You can use, modify, and distribute this software

• If you modify and distribute it, you must release your changes under AGPL-3.0

• If you run a modified version on a server, you must provide the source code to users

• See the LICENSE file for full details

For commercial licensing options or other licensing inquiries, please contact stefano@amorelli.tech.

© 2025 Stefano Amorelli