MCP Integration

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting AI applications to external tools and data. This integration exposes your oRPC router as an MCP server, so the same procedures you already serve over RPC and OpenAPI become MCP tools, resources, and prompts — usable by clients like Claude, ChatGPT, and IDEs, with the same types, validation, and middleware.

WARNING

This guide assumes you are familiar with MCP. The integration targets protocol revision 2025-11-25.

Installation

npm

npm install @orpc/mcp@beta

yarn

yarn add @orpc/mcp@beta

pnpm

pnpm add @orpc/mcp@beta

bun

bun add @orpc/mcp@beta

deno

deno add npm:@orpc/mcp@beta

Setup

Exposing a procedure to MCP is opt-in: annotate it with mcp.tool, mcp.resource, or mcp.prompt. MCP metadata is independent of any openapi meta, so a single procedure can be served over REST and MCP at the same time.

import { mcp } from '@orpc/mcp'
import { os } from '@orpc/server'
import * as z from 'zod'

export const createPlanet = os
  .meta(mcp.tool({ description: 'Create a new planet' }))
  .input(z.object({ name: z.string() }))
  .output(z.object({ id: z.string(), name: z.string() }))
  .handler(({ input }) => ({ id: crypto.randomUUID(), name: input.name }))

export const router = { createPlanet }

Then serve the router with one of the MCPHandler adapters.

Tools

Tools are functions the model can call. A procedure's .input() becomes the tool's JSON Schema, its return value becomes the result, and its .output() adds an output schema plus structured content. Thrown typed errors are reported back to the model as in-band tool errors, so it can react to them.

export const createPlanet = os
  .meta(mcp.tool({
    description: 'Create a new planet',
    annotations: { destructiveHint: false },
  }))
  .input(CreatingPlanetSchema)
  .output(PlanetSchema)
  .handler(({ input }) => create(input))

Behavior hints — readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint, openWorldHint — go in annotations.

Resources

Resources expose read-only data addressed by a URI. Use a fixed uri for a single resource, or a uriTemplate whose variables map to the procedure's input.

// Static resource
export const appConfig = os
  .meta(mcp.resource({ uri: 'config://app', mimeType: 'application/json' }))
  .output(ConfigSchema)
  .handler(() => getConfig())

// Templated resource — `{id}` is read from the input
export const planet = os
  .meta(mcp.resource({ uriTemplate: 'planet://{id}', mimeType: 'application/json' }))
  .input(z.object({ id: z.string() }))
  .output(PlanetSchema)
  .handler(({ input }) => findPlanet(input.id))

TIP

Only annotate read-only, side-effect-free procedures as resources.

Prompts

Prompts are reusable templates a user can invoke. The arguments are derived from the procedure's .input(), and the handler returns the prompt messages.

export const planTrip = os
  .meta(mcp.prompt({ description: 'Plan a vacation' }))
  .input(z.object({ destination: z.string() }))
  .output(z.object({
    messages: z.array(z.object({
      role: z.enum(['user', 'assistant']),
      content: z.object({ type: z.literal('text'), text: z.string() }),
    })),
  }))
  .handler(({ input }) => ({
    messages: [{ role: 'user', content: { type: 'text', text: `Plan a trip to ${input.destination}` } }],
  }))

Serving

MCPHandler speaks the MCP protocol over the Streamable HTTP transport (Fetch or Node.js) or over stdio. Pass the schema converter for your validation library — the same converters used by @orpc/openapi.

It is built on oRPC's standard request/response flow, so tool, resource, and prompt calls run through your middleware, validation, and context, and any handler plugin (CORS, body limit, OpenTelemetry) composes as usual.

Fetch

import { MCPHandler } from '@orpc/mcp/fetch'
import { ZodToJsonSchemaConverter } from '@orpc/zod'

const handler = new MCPHandler(router, {
  serverInfo: { name: 'planets', version: '1.0.0' },
  converters: [new ZodToJsonSchemaConverter()],
})

export async function POST(request: Request) {
  const { response } = await handler.handle(request, { context: {} })
  return response ?? new Response('Not found', { status: 404 })
}

Node.js

import { createServer } from 'node:http'
import { MCPHandler } from '@orpc/mcp/node'
import { ZodToJsonSchemaConverter } from '@orpc/zod'

const handler = new MCPHandler(router, { converters: [new ZodToJsonSchemaConverter()] })

createServer((req, res) => handler.handle(req, res, { context: {} })).listen(3000)

stdio

For clients that launch your server as a subprocess (Claude Desktop, IDEs):

import { MCPHandler } from '@orpc/mcp/stdio'
import { ZodToJsonSchemaConverter } from '@orpc/zod'

await new MCPHandler(router, { converters: [new ZodToJsonSchemaConverter()] })
  .listen({ context: {} })

Authorization

Authentication and authorization are your application's responsibility — the integration stays unopinionated about tokens, scopes, and OAuth. Supply request-derived values as context when calling the handler, then enforce them with ordinary middleware, which runs for every tool, resource, and prompt call.

export const authed = os.use(({ context, next, errors }) => {
  const user = verifyToken(context.authToken)
  if (!user)
    throw errors.UNAUTHORIZED()
  return next({ context: { user } })
})

export const deletePlanet = authed
  .meta(mcp.tool({ description: 'Delete a planet' }))
  .handler(({ context }) => remove(context.user))

A thrown UNAUTHORIZED reaches the model as an in-band tool error, or a resource/prompt request as a protocol error.

Security

For HTTP servers reachable by browsers, enable Origin and Host validation to guard against DNS-rebinding attacks. A missing Origin header still passes, so non-browser clients are unaffected.

export const handler = new MCPHandler(router, {
  converters: [new ZodToJsonSchemaConverter()],
  enableDnsRebindingProtection: true,
  allowedOrigins: ['https://your-app.example'],
  allowedHosts: ['your-app.example'],
})

One Router, Every Surface

Because MCP exposure lives in procedure metadata, a single router can be mounted on multiple handlers at once — RPC, OpenAPI, and MCP — over the same instance:

export const handlers = {
  rpc: new RPCHandler(router), // typed oRPC clients
  openapi: new OpenAPIHandler(router), // REST + OpenAPI
  mcp: new MCPHandler(router), // MCP tools / resources / prompts
}

Limitations

• Targets MCP revision 2025-11-25; older revisions are accepted during negotiation.
• One JSON-RPC message per request — batching is not supported.
• Server-initiated streaming (the GET SSE channel), listChanged/subscribe notifications, and sessions are not implemented. These are being removed or replaced in the next MCP revision, so the stateless request/response design is intentional.