imgflip-mcp

📚 Full documentation: mariokernich.github.io/imgflip-mcp

There's an MCP server for your database. One for your Kubernetes cluster. One for your cloud bill, one for your ticket system, and at least twelve for reading PDFs. Serious servers for serious work.

But somewhere along the way, the ecosystem forgot the workload that actually keeps engineering teams running: memes.

imgflip-mcp closes that gap. It's a Model Context Protocol server for the Imgflip meme generator API, so Claude (or any other MCP client) can browse thousands of meme templates and caption them mid-conversation — turning your AI assistant into the coworker who always has the right reaction image.

This meme was, of course, generated by imgflip-mcp itself.

You: "Make me a Drake meme about writing tests vs. testing in production" Claude: 🖼️ calls get_memes → calls caption_image → sends you the image link

Everything you need is a free Imgflip account. An Imgflip API Premium subscription is optional — it unlocks five extra tools (search, GIF captioning, automeme, AI memes), which stay hidden unless you explicitly enable them.

What would I even use this for?

More than you'd think. Once meme generation is one sentence away, it sneaks into real workflows:

• Docs people actually finish reading. Let Claude write your README section and cap it with a fitting meme — retention engineering at its finest.
• Release notes with a punchline. "v2.0: we rewrote everything" hits different next to an Expanding Brain meme of your migration steps.
• Code review, but kind. Answer the 400-line PR with a Two Buttons meme instead of a lecture. Same message, fewer hurt feelings.
• Retros & standups. Feed in the sprint summary, get the This Is Fine recap the team deserves.
• Incident postmortems. Nothing says "blameless" like a well-chosen Disaster Girl on the last slide.
• Slack announcements. Deploy freezes, on-call handovers, "the build is green again" — all measurably more effective as memes.

Is any of this necessary? No. Neither is syntax highlighting, and yet here we are.

Tools

Free tools (enabled by default)

These two tools cover the everyday use case end to end: find a template, put text on it, get the image URL.

Premium tools (optional, opt-in)

These require an Imgflip API Premium subscription and are not registered by default, so free-tier users never see tools that would fail. If you have Premium, enable them by setting IMGFLIP_PREMIUM=true.

Extras

• Inline images: every meme-generating tool returns the result both as URL and as an embedded image (up to 2 MB), so clients like Claude Desktop render the meme directly in the chat.
• make-meme prompt: an MCP prompt that guides the model through template selection and captioning — pass a topic and optionally a template preference.
• Tool annotations: lookup tools are marked readOnlyHint so clients can auto-approve them safely.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• An Imgflip account (sign up for free) — required for every tool except get_memes

Environment variables

* Only get_memes works without credentials.

Note: The Imgflip API authenticates with username/password form fields — it does not offer API keys. Consider creating a dedicated Imgflip account for API use.

Installation

The server communicates over stdio, so your MCP client launches it as a subprocess — there is no port or daemon to manage. Pick whichever route fits your client:

From source

git clone https://github.com/mariokernich/imgflip-mcp.git
cd imgflip-mcp
corepack enable   # provides pnpm (see packageManager in package.json)
pnpm install
pnpm build

The compiled server entry point is dist/index.js; the config examples below use npx -y imgflip-mcp, which you can always replace with node /absolute/path/to/imgflip-mcp/dist/index.js.

Using with Claude

Claude Desktop

Option A — one-click Desktop Extension (recommended):

1. Download the latest imgflip-mcp-*.mcpb file from the Releases page (or build it yourself: npx @anthropic-ai/mcpb pack).
2. Double-click the file (or use Settings → Extensions → Install extension…).
3. Claude Desktop shows a configuration form: enter your Imgflip username and password (stored in the OS keychain) and, if you have API Premium, tick Enable Premium tools. Done — no JSON editing required.

Option B — manual JSON config:

1. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings → Developer → Edit Config. This opens (or creates) claude_desktop_config.json:

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the server under mcpServers (create the key if the file is empty):

   config.json

   Copy

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "imgflip": {
         "command": "npx",
         "args": ["-y", "imgflip-mcp"],
         "env": {
           "IMGFLIP_USERNAME": "your-username",
           "IMGFLIP_PASSWORD": "your-password"
         }
       }
     }
   }
   

   If you have API Premium and want the extra tools, add "IMGFLIP_PREMIUM": "true" to the env block.

3. Fully restart Claude Desktop (quit from the tray/menu bar, not just close the window).

4. Open a new chat — the Imgflip tools now show up in the tools menu (🔌 icon). Try:

   "Make a Drake meme: top 'manually formatting code', bottom 'letting the linter do it'."

   Claude will look up the template, call caption_image, and reply with the finished image link.

Claude Code (CLI)

Option A — as a plugin. This repository is its own plugin marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add mariokernich/imgflip-mcp
/plugin install imgflip@imgflip-mcp

The plugin reads IMGFLIP_USERNAME, IMGFLIP_PASSWORD and (optionally) IMGFLIP_PREMIUM from your shell environment, so export them in your ~/.bashrc/~/.zshrc.

Option B — register the MCP server directly:

claude mcp add imgflip \
  --env IMGFLIP_USERNAME=your-username \
  --env IMGFLIP_PASSWORD=your-password \
  -- npx -y imgflip-mcp

Add --env IMGFLIP_PREMIUM=true if you have API Premium. Verify with:

claude mcp list   # "imgflip" should show as ✔ connected

Then simply ask inside any claude session:

"Generate a 'This Is Fine' meme about our flaky CI pipeline and give me the URL."

By default Claude Code adds the server to the current project; use claude mcp add --scope user … to make it available in all your projects.

What a conversation looks like