@cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server

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

Overview

Pokémon game data from PokéAPI: Pokémon, moves, abilities, items, and natures. Get a complete Pokémon profile in one call (stats, abilities, evolution, sprites), filter by generation, type, pokédex, or egg group, and compute dual-type matchups.

Tools

Resources

All resource data is also reachable via tools.

Prompt

Request pokeapi_team_builder through your client's prompt picker with required arguments lead, opponent, and opponent_kind (pokemon or type). For example, the MCP prompts/get parameters are:

{
  "name": "pokeapi_team_builder",
  "arguments": { "lead": "charizard", "opponent": "aerodactyl", "opponent_kind": "pokemon" }
}

For a type opponent, use "opponent": "electric", "opponent_kind": "type". Retrieval returns instructions; the client then calls the existing tools to propose up to six verified members including the lead. The workflow asks for game/format restrictions and separates type-chart and base-stat observations from recommendations. It does not establish battle turn order, game legality, or guaranteed counters; a type opponent has no individual Speed.

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. A species name resolves to its default variety (deoxys returns deoxys-normal, with resolvedFromSpecies: "deoxys").

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

• 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.

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.

• Species names resolve to their default variety (deoxys uses deoxys-normal); resolvedPokemon and resolvedFromSpecies report the match and are null for direct type queries.

• 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 per attacking type; 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 lists every version/currency row (versionGroup, currency, purchasePrice, sellPrice); null means not purchasable/sellable there, and an empty list means no price records. cost is the legacy Pokédollar cost, or null.

• 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. Type-only searches include forms; generation, pokédex, and egg-group filters return species. IDs are PokéAPI IDs, not dex numbers.

• appliedFilters echoes the filters, query tokens, limit, and offset that were applied. A call with no category returns no entries and a notice saying one is required.

• limit (default 50) and offset (default 0) paginate the filtered set. A page past the last match keeps totalCount and advises offset: 0; zero matches advise relaxing the filters.

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 with a configurable TTL (default 6 h) to respect PokéAPI's fair-use policy

• Input normalization — accepts lowercase-hyphenated names or numeric IDs; trims, lowercases, and hyphenates whitespace. A blank identifier or one over 100 characters returns not_found (invalid_filter for a search filter) without an upstream request

• 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 — missing descriptions, sprites, holders, and learners are stated explicitly in text and structured results rather than omitted

Getting started

Connect to the hosted instance, no install:

claude mcp add --transport http pokeapi-mcp-server https://pokeapi.caseyjhand.com/mcp

Or run it locally:

claude mcp add pokeapi-mcp-server -- npx -y @cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server

For other clients, add this to the MCP config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pokeapi-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

No API key is required. For Docker or a source build, see Running the server.

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

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

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server.git
cd pokeapi-mcp-server && bun install
cp .env.example .env   # optional overrides; no API key required

• 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       # Offline Vitest suite with deterministic fetch fixtures
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker run --rm -p 3010:3010 ghcr.io/cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server:latest

The image defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/pokeapi-mcp-server. For stdio, run docker run -i --rm -e MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio ghcr.io/cyanheads/pokeapi-mcp-server:latest. To build locally, run docker build -t pokeapi-mcp-server .; add --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, resources, and prompts 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.