boe-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives Claude Code — or any MCP client — live Bank of England data: the base rate (current level, change history, statistics over any period, and the rate in force on any past date), any series from the BoE's IADB statistical database (SONIA, exchange rates, quoted mortgage rates, and thousands more, with a curated catalog to start from), and the Monetary Policy Committee meeting schedule. It runs over stdio by default (with an opt-in Streamable HTTP mode for remote hosting), needs no API key or configuration, and caches responses in memory so repeated questions don't re-hit the BoE.

Published on npm as boe-mcp with build provenance — install and run it with npx -y boe-mcp.

Tools

get_series accepts any valid IADB code (not only the catalogued ones); an unknown or empty code returns a clean Unknown or empty IADB series "XXXX" — use list_series for known codes message. Use list_series to discover codes.

If the BoE is unreachable and a previously cached value exists, tools serve the cached data with "stale": true so the caller can flag the caveat. With no cache at all they return a clean error message.

Related MCP server: AusEcon MCP for ABS | RBA | APRA data

Installation

Add to your Claude Code settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or use the CLI:

claude mcp add boe -- npx -y boe-mcp

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

HTTP mode (remote hosting)

By default the server speaks MCP over stdio as a child process of the client. To host it remotely instead, start it in Streamable HTTP mode:

npx -y boe-mcp --http                  # listen on http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp
npx -y boe-mcp --http 8080             # explicit port
BOE_MCP_HTTP_PORT=8080 npx -y boe-mcp  # env var instead of the flag

Endpoints: POST /mcp (JSON-RPC), GET /healthz (returns ok, for hosting platform health checks). The transport is stateless — every POST is served by a fresh server instance, so there are no sessions to resume and no SSE stream; GET/DELETE /mcp return 405. That makes instances safe to scale horizontally behind a load balancer.

Try it with curl:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"curl","version":"0"}}}'

Security: the default bind of 127.0.0.1 only accepts connections from the local machine, and DNS-rebinding protection (Host-header validation) is enabled automatically for loopback binds. Setting BOE_MCP_HTTP_HOST=0.0.0.0 exposes the server, with no authentication, to every network the machine is attached to — only do that behind a reverse proxy or firewall that controls who can reach it (DNS-rebinding protection is disabled for non-loopback binds, since the server can't know the legitimate public hostname).

Configuration

Data sources

• Base rate: the Bank of England Statistical Interactive Database (IADB), series IUDBEDR, via its public CSV endpoint. No auth, no key. Honest caveat: the IADB is not officially documented as a public API — it has been stable for many years and is widely used, but the Bank makes no compatibility promises, so a breaking change is possible in principle.

• MPC dates: parsed from the BoE's public upcoming MPC dates page. The parser deliberately avoids depending on the page's markup (it scans the visible text for dates), so cosmetic redesigns won't break it.

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/moureauf/boe-mcp.git
cd boe-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start            # runs the stdio server

Contributing & releasing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development workflow (making changes, testing, adding tools, versioning) and how the release pipeline connects GitHub, npm, and the MCP registry. Publishing is automated: pushing a v* tag runs .github/workflows/publish.yml, which builds, tests, and publishes to npm via trusted publishing (OIDC — no token secret, with a provenance attestation) and to the official MCP registry. Exact commands and one-time setup are in RELEASING.md.

License

MIT