FastMCP

A TypeScript framework for building MCP servers capable of handling client sessions.

Features

• Simple Tool, Resource, Prompt definition
• Authentication
• Sessions
• Image content
• Logging
• Error handling
• SSE
• CORS (enabled by default)
• Progress notifications
• Typed server events
• Prompt argument auto-completion
• Sampling
• Automated SSE pings
• Roots
• CLI for testing and debugging

Installation

npm install fastmcp

Quickstart

import { FastMCP } from "fastmcp";
import { z } from "zod";

const server = new FastMCP({
  name: "My Server",
  version: "1.0.0",
});

server.addTool({
  name: "add",
  description: "Add two numbers",
  parameters: z.object({
    a: z.number(),
    b: z.number(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return String(args.a + args.b);
  },
});

server.start({
  transportType: "stdio",
});

That's it! You have a working MCP server.

You can test the server in terminal with:

git clone https://github.com/punkpeye/fastmcp.git
cd fastmcp

npm install

# Test the addition server example using CLI:
npx fastmcp dev src/examples/addition.ts
# Test the addition server example using MCP Inspector:
npx fastmcp inspect src/examples/addition.ts

SSE

You can also run the server with SSE support:

server.start({
  transportType: "sse",
  sse: {
    endpoint: "/sse",
    port: 8080,
  },
});

This will start the server and listen for SSE connections on http://localhost:8080/sse.

You can then use SSEClientTransport to connect to the server:

import { SSEClientTransport } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/sse.js";

const client = new Client(
  {
    name: "example-client",
    version: "1.0.0",
  },
  {
    capabilities: {},
  },
);

const transport = new SSEClientTransport(new URL(`http://localhost:8080/sse`));

await client.connect(transport);

Core Concepts

Tools

Tools in MCP allow servers to expose executable functions that can be invoked by clients and used by LLMs to perform actions.

server.addTool({
  name: "fetch",
  description: "Fetch the content of a url",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return await fetchWebpageContent(args.url);
  },
});

Returning a string

execute can return a string:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return "Hello, world!";
  },
});

The latter is equivalent to:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return {
      content: [
        {
          type: "text",
          text: "Hello, world!",
        },
      ],
    };
  },
});

Returning a list

If you want to return a list of messages, you can return an object with a content property:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return {
      content: [
        { type: "text", text: "First message" },
        { type: "text", text: "Second message" },
      ],
    };
  },
});

Returning an image

Use the imageContent to create a content object for an image:

import { imageContent } from "fastmcp";

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return imageContent({
      url: "https://example.com/image.png",
    });

    // or...
    // return imageContent({
    //   path: "/path/to/image.png",
    // });

    // or...
    // return imageContent({
    //   buffer: Buffer.from("iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=", "base64"),
    // });

    // or...
    // return {
    //   content: [
    //     await imageContent(...)
    //   ],
    // };
  },
});

The imageContent function takes the following options:

• url: The URL of the image.
• path: The path to the image file.
• buffer: The image data as a buffer.

Only one of url, path, or buffer must be specified.

The above example is equivalent to:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    return {
      content: [
        {
          type: "image",
          data: "iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=",
          mimeType: "image/png",
        },
      ],
    };
  },
});

Logging

Tools can log messages to the client using the log object in the context object:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args, { log }) => {
    log.info("Downloading file...", {
      url,
    });

    // ...

    log.info("Downloaded file");

    return "done";
  },
});

The log object has the following methods:

• debug(message: string, data?: SerializableValue)
• error(message: string, data?: SerializableValue)
• info(message: string, data?: SerializableValue)
• warn(message: string, data?: SerializableValue)

Errors

The errors that are meant to be shown to the user should be thrown as UserError instances:

import { UserError } from "fastmcp";

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args) => {
    if (args.url.startsWith("https://example.com")) {
      throw new UserError("This URL is not allowed");
    }

    return "done";
  },
});

Progress

Tools can report progress by calling reportProgress in the context object:

server.addTool({
  name: "download",
  description: "Download a file",
  parameters: z.object({
    url: z.string(),
  }),
  execute: async (args, { reportProgress }) => {
    reportProgress({
      progress: 0,
      total: 100,
    });

    // ...

    reportProgress({
      progress: 100,
      total: 100,
    });

    return "done";
  },
});

Resources

Resources represent any kind of data that an MCP server wants to make available to clients. This can include:

• File contents
• Screenshots and images
• Log files
• And more

Each resource is identified by a unique URI and can contain either text or binary data.

server.addResource({
  uri: "file:///logs/app.log",
  name: "Application Logs",
  mimeType: "text/plain",
  async load() {
    return {
      text: await readLogFile(),
    };
  },
});

async load() {
  return [
    {
      text: "First file content",
    },
    {
      text: "Second file content",
    },
  ];
}

You can also return binary contents in load:

async load() {
  return {
    blob: 'base64-encoded-data'
  };
}

Resource templates

You can also define resource templates:

server.addResourceTemplate({
  uriTemplate: "file:///logs/{name}.log",
  name: "Application Logs",
  mimeType: "text/plain",
  arguments: [
    {
      name: "name",
      description: "Name of the log",
      required: true,
    },
  ],
  async load({ name }) {
    return {
      text: `Example log content for ${name}`,
    };
  },
});

Resource template argument auto-completion

Provide complete functions for resource template arguments to enable automatic completion:

server.addResourceTemplate({
  uriTemplate: "file:///logs/{name}.log",
  name: "Application Logs",
  mimeType: "text/plain",
  arguments: [
    {
      name: "name",
      description: "Name of the log",
      required: true,
      complete: async (value) => {
        if (value === "Example") {
          return {
            values: ["Example Log"],
          };
        }

        return {
          values: [],
        };
      },
    },
  ],
  async load({ name }) {
    return {
      text: `Example log content for ${name}`,
    };
  },
});

Prompts

Prompts enable servers to define reusable prompt templates and workflows that clients can easily surface to users and LLMs. They provide a powerful way to standardize and share common LLM interactions.

server.addPrompt({
  name: "git-commit",
  description: "Generate a Git commit message",
  arguments: [
    {
      name: "changes",
      description: "Git diff or description of changes",
      required: true,
    },
  ],
  load: async (args) => {
    return `Generate a concise but descriptive commit message for these changes:\n\n${args.changes}`;
  },
});

Prompt argument auto-completion

Prompts can provide auto-completion for their arguments:

server.addPrompt({
  name: "countryPoem",
  description: "Writes a poem about a country",
  load: async ({ name }) => {
    return `Hello, ${name}!`;
  },
  arguments: [
    {
      name: "name",
      description: "Name of the country",
      required: true,
      complete: async (value) => {
        if (value === "Germ") {
          return {
            values: ["Germany"],
          };
        }

        return {
          values: [],
        };
      },
    },
  ],
});

Prompt argument auto-completion using enum

If you provide an enum array for an argument, the server will automatically provide completions for the argument.

server.addPrompt({
  name: "countryPoem",
  description: "Writes a poem about a country",
  load: async ({ name }) => {
    return `Hello, ${name}!`;
  },
  arguments: [
    {
      name: "name",
      description: "Name of the country",
      required: true,
      enum: ["Germany", "France", "Italy"],
    },
  ],
});

Authentication

FastMCP allows you to authenticate clients using a custom function:

import { AuthError } from "fastmcp";

const server = new FastMCP({
  name: "My Server",
  version: "1.0.0",
  authenticate: ({request}) => {
    const apiKey = request.headers["x-api-key"];

    if (apiKey !== '123') {
      throw new Response(null, {
        status: 401,
        statusText: "Unauthorized",
      });
    }

    // Whatever you return here will be accessible in the `context.session` object.
    return {
      id: 1,
    }
  },
});

Now you can access the authenticated session data in your tools:

server.addTool({
  name: "sayHello",
  execute: async (args, { session }) => {
    return `Hello, ${session.id}!`;
  },
});

Sessions

The session object is an instance of FastMCPSession and it describes active client sessions.

server.sessions;

We allocate a new server instance for each client connection to enable 1:1 communication between a client and the server.

Typed server events

You can listen to events emitted by the server using the on method:

server.on("connect", (event) => {
  console.log("Client connected:", event.session);
});

server.on("disconnect", (event) => {
  console.log("Client disconnected:", event.session);
});

FastMCPSession

FastMCPSession represents a client session and provides methods to interact with the client.

Refer to Sessions for examples of how to obtain a FastMCPSession instance.

requestSampling

requestSampling creates a sampling request and returns the response.

await session.requestSampling({
  messages: [
    {
      role: "user",
      content: {
        type: "text",
        text: "What files are in the current directory?",
      },
    },
  ],
  systemPrompt: "You are a helpful file system assistant.",
  includeContext: "thisServer",
  maxTokens: 100,
});

clientCapabilities

The clientCapabilities property contains the client capabilities.

session.clientCapabilities;

loggingLevel

The loggingLevel property describes the logging level as set by the client.

session.loggingLevel;

roots

The roots property contains the roots as set by the client.

session.roots;

server

The server property contains an instance of MCP server that is associated with the session.

session.server;

Typed session events

You can listen to events emitted by the session using the on method:

session.on("rootsChanged", (event) => {
  console.log("Roots changed:", event.roots);
});

session.on("error", (event) => {
  console.error("Error:", event.error);
});

Running Your Server

Test with mcp-cli

The fastest way to test and debug your server is with fastmcp dev:

npx fastmcp dev server.js
npx fastmcp dev server.ts

This will run your server with mcp-cli for testing and debugging your MCP server in the terminal.

Inspect with MCP Inspector

Another way is to use the official MCP Inspector to inspect your server with a Web UI:

npx fastmcp inspect server.ts

Showcase

• https://github.com/apinetwork/piapi-mcp-server
• https://github.com/Meeting-Baas/meeting-mcp - Meeting BaaS MCP server that enables AI assistants to create meeting bots, search transcripts, and manage recording data

Acknowledgements

• FastMCP is inspired by the Python implementation by Jonathan Lowin.
• Parts of codebase were adopted from LiteMCP.
• Parts of codebase were adopted from Model Context protocolでSSEをやってみる.