@cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server

Public Hosted Server: https://pokeapi.caseyjhand.com/mcp

Overview

Pokémon game data from PokéAPI v2 — Pokémon, moves, abilities, items, and natures, plus computed type-effectiveness matchups. Fetch a denormalized Pokémon dossier in a single call, filter Pokémon by generation, type, pokédex, or egg group, and compute dual-type matchups from any MCP client. Runs as a stdio process, a local Streamable HTTP server, or the public hosted endpoint above.

Tools

Resources

All resource data is also reachable via tools.

Related MCP server: dexMCP

Capability reference

pokeapi_get_pokemon tool

• Accepts a lowercase-hyphenated name or numeric PokéAPI Pokémon-record ID as identifier; an unknown entry returns not_found. Form IDs identify their own records: charizard-mega-x is 10034, while its associated species is charizard (6).

• A species name with no Pokémon record of its own resolves to that species' default variety: deoxys returns the deoxys-normal dossier with resolvedFromSpecies: "deoxys". resolvedFromSpecies is null when the identifier names a record directly.

• Returns stats, types, ability effects, sprites, evolution chain, varieties, capture and growth rates, gender ratio, and legendary/mythical flags in one dossier.

• Each evolution step includes all evolutionDetails alternatives in upstream order, with requirements, version/default metadata, and starting/resulting forms. The existing trigger, minLevel, item, and condition summarize the first alternative. Conditional expressions, variable names, and chance percentages are preserved without evaluation.

• include_moves (default false) adds the move summary; moveCount is always returned. game_version selects flavor text and falls back to the most recent English entry when unavailable.

pokeapi_get_type_matchups tool

• Requires exactly one of type (type name) or pokemon (name or PokéAPI Pokémon-record ID); unknown entries return not_found.

• Returns offensiveRelations (null for dual-type Pokémon) and defensiveMatchups, with dual-type defenses composed and immunity taking precedence.

• composedMultipliers carries 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, or 4 for every attacking type touched, including neutral 1× cancellations; absent types also deal 1×.

pokeapi_get_move tool

• Accepts a lowercase-hyphenated move name or numeric ID; an unknown entry returns not_found.

• Returns type, damage class, power, accuracy, PP, priority, target, stat changes, and secondary-effect chance, plus full and short English effect text

• include_learners (default false) adds the list of Pokémon that can learn the move. learnersIncluded distinguishes an unrequested list from a requested list with no known learners.

pokeapi_get_ability tool

• Accepts a lowercase-hyphenated ability name or numeric ID

• Returns full and short English effect text, the generation introduced, and every Pokémon that has the ability, with its hidden-ability flag and slot

• not_found when the identifier resolves to no ability

pokeapi_get_item tool

• Accepts a lowercase-hyphenated item name or numeric ID

• Returns category, fling power, attributes (holdable, consumable, etc.), sprite URL, effect text, and Pokémon that commonly hold it

• prices preserves every version/currency row (versionGroup, currency, purchasePrice, sellPrice). Null purchase/sell values mean not purchasable/not sellable in that row; zero is a literal amount. An empty list means price records are unavailable.

• cost preserves a supplied legacy Pokédollar cost and is null when absent. It is never inferred from a versioned price row.

• not_found when the identifier resolves to no item

pokeapi_get_nature tool

• identifier (name or ID 1–25) is optional — omit it to return all 25 natures at once (isListAll: true)

• Each entry carries the boosted stat, reduced stat, and liked/disliked berry flavor — all null for the 5 neutral natures

• not_found when a provided identifier resolves to no nature

pokeapi_find_pokemon tool

• Requires at least one of generation, type, pokedex, and egg_group, combined with AND logic; query (at most 100 characters) adds per-token name matching within them. Unrecognized category names return invalid_filter.

• Returns id and name entries for follow-up pokeapi_get_pokemon calls, with totalCount before paging. Every returned name works as a pokeapi_get_pokemon identifier: a species name resolves to its default variety. Type catalogs supply Pokémon-record IDs, including forms; generation, pokédex, and egg-group catalogs supply species IDs. These are PokéAPI IDs, not regional dex positions or National Pokédex numbers for forms.

• appliedFilters echoes normalized nonblank categories, lowercase query tokens joined with single spaces, and accepted limit/offset values, including defaults. A call without a category, with or without query, returns no entries and a category-required notice; an unapplied query is omitted from the echo.

• limit (default 50) and offset (default 0) paginate the filtered set. A page beyond existing matches retains totalCount and advises retrying with offset: 0; true zero matches advise relaxing the filters. Echoes and notices appear in structured results and the text trailer.

pokeapi://pokemon/{identifier} resource

• Same payload as pokeapi_get_pokemon with include_moves fixed to false

• identifier is a name or PokéAPI Pokémon-record ID, including form IDs; a species name resolves to its default variety

• not_found when the identifier matches no Pokémon record and no species

pokeapi://type/{typeName} resource

• Returns the raw offensive and defensive damage-relation multiplier table for one type

• typeName is one of the 18 canonical Pokémon types

• not_found when the type name doesn't exist in PokéAPI

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

PokéAPI-specific:

• Keyless and read-only — no API key, no auth, no configuration required to run

• Graph-walk consolidation — pokeapi_get_pokemon fans out across /pokemon, /pokemon-species, /evolution-chain, and N /ability endpoints in two parallel tiers, returning one object

• Aggressive caching — PokéAPI data is static game data; responses are cached in ctx.state with a configurable TTL (default 6 h) to respect PokéAPI's fair-use policy. Only identifiers in PokéAPI's own a–z, 0–9, and hyphen alphabet are cached; any other identifier is fetched each time

• Input normalization — accepts lowercase-hyphenated names or numeric IDs; trims, lowercases, and hyphenates whitespace, then URL-encodes the identifier once when the request is built. A blank, ., or .. identifier, or one over 100 characters, returns not_found (invalid_filter for a search filter) without an upstream request. An identifier outside the a–z, 0–9, and hyphen alphabet that PokéAPI refuses with a 400 returns the same error

• English-first — effect_entries and flavor_text_entries are always filtered to language.name === 'en'; absent entries surface as null rather than a foreign-language string

Agent-friendly output:

• Dual-type composition — pokeapi_get_type_matchups computes the effective matchup matrix from raw damage relations, so agents get a direct answer rather than raw tables to multiply

• Variant surface — pokeapi_get_pokemon lists all form variants so agents can identify and re-call with specific forms (Alolan, Galarian, Mega, Gigantamax)

• Nullable details — meaningful missing scalars and empty lists are explicit in text as well as structured results: unavailable descriptions and sprites, no known holders or learners, no stat changes, neutral flavor preferences, and empty type relations. Regular/hidden abilities and default/alternative varieties retain their labels.

Getting started

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://pokeapi.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pokeapi-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://pokeapi.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Self-Hosted / Local

No API key required. Add the following to your MCP client configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pokeapi-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pokeapi-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pokeapi-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).

• No API key required — PokéAPI is fully public.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd pokeapi-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment (optional):

cp .env.example .env
# All vars are optional — the server works with defaults

Configuration

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Self-hosting for high-volume use

PokéAPI's Fair Use Policy asks consumers to cache aggressively and points high-volume deployments toward running a local instance. This server already caches responses for 6 hours by default (POKEAPI_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS), which covers most workloads. For hosted or batch-heavy deployments, run the official PokéAPI Docker image locally and point POKEAPI_BASE_URL at it — the server switches transparently.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  bun run rebuild
  
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker build -t pokeapi-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -p 3010:3010 pokeapi-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/pokeapi-mcp-server. Build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit OpenTelemetry peer dependencies.

Project structure

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — catch typed upstream errors only to map a declared errors[] contract with ctx.fail(...)

• Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage (and caching)

• Register new tools and resources in the createApp() arrays in src/index.ts

• Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.