Alpaca

What Alpaca MCP server does

The Alpaca MCP server exposes three market-data operations for US equities through MCP. It is intended for agents that need current prices, historical bars, or a session VWAP calculation rather than order execution or portfolio management.

alpaca_snapshot returns the latest trade, bid and ask, current-day OHLCV, previous close, absolute and percentage change, and the most recent minute bar with VWAP. Pre-market and after-hours coverage is included. During those sessions, the returned minute bar represents the live extended-hours price. One request can contain up to 20 comma-separated symbols.

alpaca_bars retrieves historical OHLCV data with VWAP and trade count for every bar. Supported intervals are 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 1 day. Intraday results include pre-market and after-hours sessions through the IEX feed.

alpaca_intraday_vwap loads one-minute bars from 04:00 Eastern Time, calculates the cumulative VWAP for the current session, and compares it with the latest trade. Its result includes the current price, session VWAP, above-or-below status, and session volume for each requested symbol.

How it works

The Alpaca MCP server accepts MCP tool calls and forwards market-data requests to Alpaca. Each tool requires the caller to provide an Alpaca credential in the _apiKey argument, using the key_id:secret_key format shown in the project examples.

For bar queries, callers can provide ISO start and end timestamps or a relative lookback such as 2h or 5d. Symbols are passed as a comma-separated string, with a maximum of 20 symbols per request.

The gateway endpoint also exposes shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including routing and discovery tools. A local stdio connection exposes only the three Alpaca tools. The gateway and local modes use the same source and market-data tool set, but they differ in whether shared gateway tools are listed.

Setup and configuration

For a gateway connection, add the following MCP endpoint to a compatible client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alpaca": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/alpaca/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The package can also run without a gateway account using stdio:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alpaca": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-alpaca"]
    }
  }
}

Run npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-alpaca directly to verify that the local process starts. In either mode, supply _apiKey when calling a market-data tool.

Tools and capabilities

• Retrieve real-time snapshots for up to 20 US stock symbols.
• Include pre-market and after-hours prices and volume in snapshot and intraday-bar results.
• Request historical bars at five supported timeframes.
• Use ISO time ranges or shorthand lookbacks for historical queries.
• Compare current trade prices with session VWAP across multiple symbols.
• Receive per-bar VWAP and trade counts from historical queries.

Limitations and notes

The Alpaca MCP server covers US stock market data described by the three listed tools.

Data uses Alpaca's real-time IEX feed, and intraday VWAP begins at 04:00 Eastern Time. Requests are limited to 20 comma-separated symbols. Gateway connections list additional Pipeworx meta-tools, while local stdio mode does not provide those routing and discovery tools.

The server does not provide an Alpaca key for the caller. An Alpaca credential must be supplied with each relevant tool request through _apiKey.