@compute-finance/mcp

Live AI compute pricing oracle — real-time LLM model prices across nine vendors (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, xAI and four more) via the Compute Finance Oracle.

A stdio MCP server. Works in any MCP client. Includes optional Claude Code skills for session cost analysis.

Quick start

Claude Code (recommended)

npx @compute-finance/mcp setup

This single command:

1. Registers the MCP server at user scope (claude mcp add)

2. Installs Claude Code skills (/cf-session-management, /cf-session-consumption, /cf-active-sessions)

3. Installs the cost hook — a UserPromptSubmit hook that injects session cost into Claude's context so every response can show how much you've spent

Restart Claude Code after setup.

Or register manually without skills/hook:

claude mcp add --scope user compute-finance -- npx @compute-finance/mcp

Cursor / VS Code / Any MCP client

Add to your MCP config (.cursor/mcp.json, VS Code settings, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "compute-finance": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@compute-finance/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

From source

git clone https://github.com/compute-finance/mcp.git
cd mcp
npm install && npm run build
npx . setup

Tools

21 tools across five layers — no API key required. All tools are read-only.

Data (live oracle)

Models are identified by their canonical vendor-prefixed id — anthropic/claude-opus-4.8, openai/gpt-5.5, qwen/qwen-3.5-flash. Every tool taking a model also accepts the bare name (gpt-5.5) and answers with the canonical id. The vendor slug is not always the provider key (alibaba → qwen, xai → x-ai, moonshot → moonshotai), so reuse an id the API returned rather than assembling one. data_get_scu, data_get_breakdown and data_get_reconstitutions are the exception: they pass the attested manifest through verbatim and so report bare model keys, because a / is not a legal manifest key.

Cache pricing comes from the Compute Finance Oracle. Session and consumption reports show effective (cache-aware) cost when the oracle has published the relevant cache components; otherwise they show nominal cost (input rate applied to every input variant) and label effective as unavailable for that model.

Alongside cache, the oracle publishes a reasoning output price — reasoning.reasoningOutput, on the same base as every other component; the whole reasoning block is null for a model with no usable reasoning price. It is catalogue data. Session and consumption reports do not bill it: Claude Code transcripts count thinking blocks rather than reasoning tokens, and those tokens are already inside output_tokens.

Every price is reported on two bases: base_* is the provider list price, identical for every model the oracle tracks, and billed_* is what compute.finance charges — base × (1 + routing_fee_rate). Compare models on base_*, budget on billed_*. The rate ships once per response and billed_* is null when the oracle does not publish it. Session and consumption reports are on the base basis throughout.

Every current-price answer comes from one place: the live catalogue the exchange bills against. Index membership decides which models data_get_basket and compute_compare list, never what a model costs, so two models the catalogue prices alike quote alike. data_get_cpi is the exception by design — it serves the prices the latest on-chain revision attested, which change only when an operator publishes the next one and may therefore lag the catalogue. Read it as attestation history, not as a quote.

Some models get pricier past a context length. data_get_basket and data_get_price publish that as context_tiers, a ladder ascending by from_input_tokens and always at least one rung: the first starts at 0 and restates the flat rate, so a model priced the same at every size has exactly one rung and nothing has to branch on whether a model happens to be tiered. Rungs carry base_* and billed_* like every other price; only the flat rate enters the SCU index. compute_estimate and compute_compare pick the rung from the whole input side of the request — prompt plus cache reads plus cache writes, all charged at the full input rate there since neither tool applies a cache discount — over half-open ranges, so an input landing exactly on a threshold takes that rung, and both return the chosen rung as applied_context_tier so the rate behind the number is visible. data_get_catalog passes the oracle document through unchanged, so there contextTiers is absent rather than one-rung on a flat model.

The ladder comes from the catalog endpoint, and the two kinds of tool part ways whenever it cannot answer for a model — the read failed, or it succeeded and the model was not in it, which is upstream drift rather than a flat price. data_get_basket and data_get_price still serve their prices and set context_tiers to null — an unknown ladder, never a one-rung stand-in for a ladder nobody read. compute_estimate and compute_compare error instead: a cost quoted at the flat rate would understate exactly the long context the ladder exists to price.

max_input_tokens is the largest input a model accepts, null when the model declares no window of its own — not unbounded: the request-body ceiling still applies, there is just no per-model limit. Above a declared window the oracle refuses the request outright, so compute_estimate and compute_compare set exceeds_max_input_tokens. They still quote the cost: these tools are read-only and an agent sizing a context needs the number before it reshapes the request, but the flag says plainly that the request as supplied would be rejected.

Prices also carry a provenance mark saying how far the number has been checked: verified — an operator recorded a vendor source for it; inferred — derived from a sibling number or a vendor default, with no source recorded; promotional — a discounted list price that is expected to end. Every value bills as shown; the mark says how much to trust it, not what it costs. Marks are set by hand and hold as of the operator's last pass, not as a live check against the vendor. Every cache and reasoning component carries its own mark wherever it appears, and so does every base price: data_get_catalog marks currentPrice.provenance for every model, index member or not, while data_get_basket, data_get_price and compute_estimate carry the same pair as base_price_provenance. A rung follows the same rule: the first repeats the base price's mark, and a higher rung is always a catalogue number, marked in both directions with the single mark the vendor quotes it under. Session and consumption reports print each cache multiplier with its mark; when the oracle publishes no cache pricing for a model they say so and print no marks.

Compute

Render (Claude Code skills)

Reports surface three orthogonal counts: prompts (what you typed), inferences (assistant replies — tool-loop sessions produce several per prompt), and tool calls (tool_use blocks). The triplet is identical across all three reports for the same session.

Analysis

The analyze_session counterfactual quotes each model's base rate and never a long-context rung. A rung is picked per request, and a session's summed input is not one giant request — a hundred 5k-token calls are not a single 500k-token one — so pricing the total on a higher rung would overcharge. Expect those rows to sit below compute_compare for a model that gets pricier past a context length.

History

Cost hook

The setup command installs a UserPromptSubmit hook into ~/.claude/settings.json. Every time you send a message, the hook reads the current session transcript, prices it against the live oracle, and injects a cost summary into Claude's context via additionalContext. Claude then appends a 💰 Compute.Finance · … line at the end of its response.

Guards — the hook fires only when all three conditions are met:

• Session cost exceeds $1

• Session has at least 5 user prompts

• At least 10 minutes since the last fire (per session)

On any failure (oracle down, transcript missing, parse error) the hook exits silently — it never blocks your prompt.

Manual installation

If setup can't write to settings.json, add the hook manually:

{
  "hooks": {
    "UserPromptSubmit": [
      {
        "matcher": "",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "npx @compute-finance/mcp hook-prompt"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Uninstall

Remove the UserPromptSubmit entry from ~/.claude/settings.json.

Privacy

All data stays on your machine. The only network calls are unauthenticated GETs to api.compute.finance — the oracle endpoints under /v1/oracle/* and the OpenAPI document at /openapi.json, read once at startup to document oracle response shapes. Session logs (~/.compute-finance/sessions.jsonl, ~/.compute-finance/inferences.jsonl) are never uploaded.

Links

• Compute Finance

• Oracle API

• OpenAPI spec

• npm package