Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP Server

[!IMPORTANT] Disclaimer: This open-source project is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Federal Reserve or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "FRED" is a registered trademark of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, used here for descriptive purposes only.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing universal access to all 800,000+ Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) time series through three powerful tools.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/66c7f3ad-7b0e-4930-b1c5-a675a7eb1e09

[!TIP] If you use this project in your research or work, please cite it using the CITATION.cff file, or use the following citation:

APA Format:

Amorelli, S. (2025). Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server (Version 1.0.2) [Computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14536707

BibTeX:

@software{amorelli_2025_14536707,
  author       = {Amorelli, Stefano},
  title        = {{Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP (Model Context
                   Protocol) Server}},
  month        = jan,
  year         = 2025,
  publisher    = {Zenodo},
  version      = {1.0.2},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.14536707},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14536707}
}

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server.git
   cd fred-mcp-server
   

2. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install
   

3. Build the project:

   pnpm build
   

Configuration

This server requires a FRED® API key. You can obtain one from the FRED® website.

Install the server, for example, on Claude Desktop, modify the claude_desktop_config.json file and add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "FRED MCP Server": {
      "command": "/usr/bin/node",
      "args": [
        "/fred-mcp-server/build/index.js"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using Docker

You can also run the FRED MCP Server using Docker. Add this configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "FRED_API_KEY=<your-key-here>",
        "stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server:latest"
      ],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Replace <your-key-here> with your actual FRED API key.

Using Streamable HTTP Transport

For network deployments, you can run the server with Streamable HTTP transport instead of stdio:

# Using CLI flag
node build/index.js --http

# Or using environment variable
TRANSPORT=http node build/index.js

# Custom port (default is 3000)
PORT=8080 node build/index.js --http

The server will be available at http://localhost:3000/mcp (or your custom port).

Example client request:

# Initialize session
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"my-client","version":"1.0.0"}}}'