Unsplash MCP Server

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A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides photo search functionality using the Unsplash API with stdio transport.

Features

• 🔍 Search photos on Unsplash with various filters

• 📄 Support for pagination, orientation filtering, and content filtering

• 📊 Returns formatted photo data including URLs, user info, and metadata

• 🖼️ Two response formats: base64-encoded images (default) or JSON with URLs

• 🔗 Uses stdio transport for seamless MCP integration

• ⚡ Command-line API key support for easy deployment

• 🚀 Concurrent image fetching for optimal performance

Installation

From npm (Recommended)

npm install -g @jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server

From source

git clone https://github.com/jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server.git
cd unsplash-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

API Key Setup

Get your Unsplash API access key:

1. Visit https://unsplash.com/developers

2. Create a new application

3. Copy your Access Key

Usage

Command Line

# Using command line argument (default: image format)
npx -y @jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server --access-key YOUR_API_KEY

# Using text format (returns JSON with URLs)
npx -y @jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server --access-key YOUR_API_KEY --response-format text

# Using environment variable  
UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY @jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server

# Show help
npx @jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server --help

MCP Client Integration

Add to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unsplash": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server", "--access-key", "YOUR_API_KEY"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Especially for Claude Code, use the following command to add the MCP server to the MCP server list:

claude mcp add-json unsplash '{"command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server", "--access-key", "YOUR_API_KEY"]}'

With text format (JSON URLs):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unsplash": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server", "--access-key", "YOUR_API_KEY", "--response-format", "text"]
    }
  }
}

Or with environment variable:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unsplash": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@jeffkit/unsplash-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Development

npm run dev -- --access-key YOUR_API_KEY
npm run dev -- --access-key YOUR_API_KEY --response-format text

Tools

search_photos

Search for photos on Unsplash with configurable response format.

Parameters:

• query (required): Search term for photos

• page (optional): Page number (default: 1)

• per_page (optional): Number of photos per page (default: 10, max: 30)

• orientation (optional): Filter by orientation ("landscape", "portrait", "squarish")

• content_filter (optional): Content safety filter ("low", "high")

Response Formats:

Image Format (Default)

Returns base64-encoded images with metadata. Each image is returned as an MCP Image content type.

Text Format

Returns JSON with photo URLs and metadata:

{
  "total": 1000,
  "total_pages": 100,
  "current_page": 1,
  "per_page": 10,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "photo_id",
      "description": "Beautiful landscape",
      "urls": {
        "raw": "https://...",
        "full": "https://...",
        "regular": "https://...",
        "small": "https://...",
        "thumb": "https://..."
      },
      "user": {
        "name": "Photographer Name",
        "username": "username"
      },
      "dimensions": {
        "width": 3000,
        "height": 2000
      },
      "likes": 100,
      "color": "#f0f0f0",
      "created_at": "2023-01-01T00:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Response Format Configuration

The server can be configured at startup to return either:

1. Image format (default): Base64-encoded images as MCP Image content with complete JSON metadata

2. Text format: JSON with photo URLs and metadata as MCP Text content

Choose the format based on your MCP client's capabilities and use case.

Changelog

v1.0.2

• ✨ Added complete image URLs in metadata for image mode

• 🔧 Use original Unsplash API response structure for data integrity

• 📚 Added Gemini CLI configuration examples

• 🌏 Added Chinese documentation

v1.0.1

• 🐛 Various bug fixes and performance improvements

v1.0.0

• 🎉 Initial release

• 🔍 Basic Unsplash photo search functionality

• 📊 Support for two response formats (image/text)

• ⚡ stdio transport support