ImageGen MCP

no-api-key-required free privacy-first mcp

Free, keyless image generation for any MCP-enabled AI agent. Give your assistant the ability to create images from text prompts — with no API key, no billing, and no account setup.

What it gives you

One MCP tool: generate_image — text prompt in, local image file out. Also health for readiness checks.
Zero configuration — no API keys, no accounts, no cost. The provider is Pollinations (Flux), a free community text-to-image service.
Five aspect ratios — 1:1, 3:4, 4:3, 9:16, 16:9 (default 1:1).
Local-first output — images are saved to disk and returned as file paths; nothing is uploaded to a third party beyond the image request itself.
Defensive by design — prompt length limits, output-dir writability checks, and structured {ok, ...} / {ok: false, error} responses for clean agent error handling.

See it in action

Real outputs generated with this server (Pollinations / Flux, no API key, no post-processing):

16:9 — rainy city car

1:1 — mountain lake sunrise

9:16 — rooftop robot gardener

4:3 — product shot

Every image above was produced by a single generate_image call with just a text prompt and an aspect ratio.

How it works

AI agent → MCP tool generate_image(prompt, aspect_ratio) → Pollinations API → local image file → path returned to agent

The server speaks the Model Context Protocol (stdio transport) and uses FastMCP, so it plugs into any MCP host — including Hermes, Claude Desktop, or custom agent frameworks.

Installation

pip install -r requirements.txt   # installs mcp
python imagegen_mcp_server.py      # runs the MCP server over stdio

Or register it as a stdio MCP server in your host. Example (Hermes config):

mcp_servers:
  imagegen:
    command: /path/to/python
    args:
      - /path/to/imagegen_mcp_server.py
    enabled: true
    trust: full

Usage

Call the generate_image tool from your agent:

generate_image(prompt="a red sports car in a rainy city at night", aspect_ratio="16:9")

Returns on success:

{
  "ok": true,
  "path": "/home/user/gemini-image-mcp/output/img_20260816_222542_42026.jpeg",
  "mime_type": "image/jpeg",
  "size_bytes": 53907,
  "aspect_ratio": "16:9",
  "provider": "pollinations",
  "message": "image saved to /home/user/gemini-image-mcp/output/img_20260816_222542_42026.jpeg"
}

Options

Argument	Default	Notes
`prompt`	— (required)	Text description, max 2000 chars
`aspect_ratio`	`1:1`	One of `1:1`, `3:4`, `4:3`, `9:16`, `16:9`
`output_dir`	env or `~/gemini-image-mcp/output`	Where the image is saved; override per-call or via `IMAGE_MCP_OUTPUT_DIR`

Notes & limitations

Pollinations is a free community service — no SLA. Expect occasional slowness or brief downtime; fine for casual/prototyping use, not for a production dependency.
The endpoint blocks default HTTP client user-agents (403), so the server sends a real browser User-Agent header.
Each image is roughly 20–65 KB, so storage stays negligible.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.