hardcover-mcp

Talk to your Hardcover library from any AI assistant.

hardcover-mcp connects your Hardcover library to AI assistants like Claude and Copilot. Search for books, update your reading status, manage lists, explore series — all through natural conversation instead of clicking through menus.

What you can say

“What’s on my currently reading list?”

“Add Project Hail Mary to my library as currently reading”

“Search for books by Brandon Sanderson”

“Look up ISBN 9780547928227”

“Create a list called ‘Summer Reading’ and add The Hobbit to it”

“Show me the Stormlight Archive series in reading order”

“Move Project Hail Mary and The Martian to currently reading”

“What books has Andy Weir written? Add any I haven’t read to my want-to-read list”

“Compare my rating of Dune with the Hardcover average”

What’s covered

• Library tracking — status, ratings, reading dates
• List management — create, edit, add/remove books
• Discovery — search books, authors, series, editions, and more
• Account info — your profile and reading stats

Safety & control

• You control your API key — it stays on your machine, never shared with third parties
• Runs locally through your MCP client — no external server involved
• Actions only happen when explicitly requested — nothing runs in the background
• You review prompts and outputs in your client before anything is sent
• Read-only mode — set HARDCOVER_READ_ONLY=true to hide every tool that can change your account (see Configuration)
• Least-privilege keys — give the key only the scopes you need; a read-only key makes Hardcover itself refuse writes (see API key and scopes)

Quick Start

1. Install uv (a fast Python package runner — the setup takes seconds).
2. Create an API key at hardcover.app/account/api; see API key and scopes for links that pre-select the right scopes.
3. Add the config below to your MCP client — no manual install needed, uvx handles it.

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "hardcover": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["hardcover-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "HARDCOVER_API_TOKEN": "",
        "HARDCOVER_TOOLSETS": "all",
        "HARDCOVER_READ_ONLY": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add --scope user hardcover --env HARDCOVER_API_TOKEN= -- uvx hardcover-mcp