Clarifai MCP Server Local

The Clarifai MCP Server is a lightweight, local bridge that lets AI assistants communicate with the Clarifai platform through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). By running on a developer’s machine, it eliminates the need for external webhooks or cloud‑hosted intermediaries, keeping all data processing and API calls in a trusted environment. This local approach is especially valuable for privacy‑conscious teams, offline workflows, or rapid prototyping where latency and data sovereignty are critical.

At its core, the server exposes a set of MCP tools that map directly to Clarifai’s API endpoints. The most prominent tool, , accepts a textual prompt and returns either a base64‑encoded image or a file path for larger assets. Another tool, , allows the assistant to upload arbitrary files (images, audio, etc.) to Clarifai’s storage as inputs for future inference. The tool performs on‑device inference by sending a local image file to Clarifai’s vision models and returning the analysis results. These tools abstract away authentication, request construction, and response parsing, letting developers focus on higher‑level logic.

Developers can integrate the server into IDE extensions or custom LLM pipelines by adding a single MCP configuration entry. The server automatically handles PAT (Personal Access Token) authentication, user and app scoping, and output path management. Because the server is built in Go, it compiles to a single binary that can run on macOS, Linux, or Windows without external dependencies. This makes it easy to ship the server as part of a developer kit or CI/CD pipeline.

Real‑world use cases abound: an AI‑powered design assistant can generate concept sketches on demand; a data labeling workflow can automatically upload annotated images to Clarifai for training; and a chatbot can provide instant visual explanations by running inference on user‑uploaded photos. The server’s ability to return small images inline (base64) or large files to a specified directory keeps LLM context lightweight while still delivering rich media outputs. Its tight coupling with Clarifai’s models means developers can leverage cutting‑edge vision and generative capabilities without writing custom HTTP clients or handling complex authentication flows.