Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP Server

[!IMPORTANT] Disclaimer: This open-source project is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Federal Reserve or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "FRED" is a registered trademark of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, used here for descriptive purposes only.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing universal access to all 800,000+ Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) time series through three powerful tools.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/66c7f3ad-7b0e-4930-b1c5-a675a7eb1e09

[!TIP] If you use this project in your research or work, please cite it using the CITATION.cff file, or use the following citation:

APA Format:

Amorelli, S. (2025). Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server (Version 1.0.2) [Computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14536707

BibTeX:

@software{amorelli_2025_14536707,
  author       = {Amorelli, Stefano},
  title        = {{Federal Reserve Economic Data MCP (Model Context
                   Protocol) Server}},
  month        = jan,
  year         = 2025,
  publisher    = {Zenodo},
  version      = {1.0.2},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.14536707},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14536707}
}

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server.git
   cd fred-mcp-server
   

2. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install
   

3. Build the project:

   pnpm build
   

Configuration

This server requires a FRED® API key. You can obtain one from the FRED® website.

Install the server, for example, on Claude Desktop, modify the claude_desktop_config.json file and add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "FRED MCP Server": {
      "command": "/usr/bin/node",
      "args": [
        "<PATH_TO_YOUR_CLONED_REPO>/fred-mcp-server/build/index.js"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using Docker

You can also run the FRED MCP Server using Docker. Add this configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "FRED_API_KEY=<your-key-here>",
        "stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server:latest"
      ],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Replace <your-key-here> with your actual FRED API key.

Using Streamable HTTP Transport

For network deployments, you can run the server with Streamable HTTP transport instead of stdio:

# Using CLI flag
node build/index.js --http

# Or using environment variable
TRANSPORT=http node build/index.js

# Custom port (default is 3000)
PORT=8080 node build/index.js --http

The server will be available at http://localhost:3000/mcp (or your custom port).

Example client request:

# Initialize session
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"my-client","version":"1.0.0"}}}'

# Use the mcp-session-id from the response header for subsequent requests
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -H "mcp-session-id: <session-id-from-init>" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/list"}'

A GET /healthz endpoint reports active sessions, cache statistics, and uptime for load balancers and orchestrators.

Configuration

All settings are environment variables with sensible defaults:

Variable	Default	Description
FRED_API_KEY	(required)	Your FRED API key
FRED_API_TIMEOUT_MS	30000	Per-request timeout against the FRED API
FRED_API_MAX_RETRIES	3	Retries for 429/5xx/network failures (exponential backoff with jitter, honors Retry-After)
FRED_API_RETRY_BASE_DELAY_MS	500	Base delay for retry backoff
FRED_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE	120	Client-side token bucket matching FRED's per-key quota
FRED_CACHE_TTL_MS	60000	TTL for cached API responses (0 disables caching)
FRED_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES	500	LRU cache capacity
TRANSPORT	stdio	Set to http for Streamable HTTP transport
HOST	(all interfaces)	HTTP bind address
PORT	3000	HTTP port
MCP_MAX_SESSIONS	100	Maximum concurrent MCP sessions (new sessions get 503 beyond this)
MCP_SESSION_TTL_MS	1800000	Idle time before a session is reaped
MCP_SESSION_SWEEP_INTERVAL_MS	60000	How often the idle-session reaper runs
MCP_BODY_LIMIT	1mb	Maximum accepted JSON body size
LOG_LEVEL	info	error, warn, info, or debug (logs go to stderr)

Identical concurrent requests are coalesced into a single upstream call, and successful responses are cached, so multiple sessions share one rate-limit budget efficiently.

Available Tools

This MCP server provides three comprehensive tools to access all 800,000+ FRED® economic data series:

fred_browse

Description: Browse FRED's complete catalog through categories, releases, or sources.

Parameters:

• browse_type (required): Type of browsing - "categories", "releases", "sources", "category_series", "release_series"
• category_id (optional): Category ID for browsing subcategories or series within a category
• release_id (optional): Release ID for browsing series within a release
• limit (optional): Maximum number of results (default: 50)
• offset (optional): Number of results to skip for pagination
• order_by (optional): Field to order results by
• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"

fred_search

Description: Search for FRED economic data series by keywords, tags, or filters.

Parameters:

• search_text (optional): Text to search for in series titles and descriptions
• search_type (optional): "full_text" or "series_id"
• tag_names (optional): Comma-separated list of tag names to filter by
• exclude_tag_names (optional): Comma-separated list of tag names to exclude
• limit (optional): Maximum number of results (default: 25)
• offset (optional): Number of results to skip for pagination
• order_by (optional): Field to order by (e.g., "popularity", "last_updated")
• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"
• filter_variable (optional): Filter by "frequency", "units", or "seasonal_adjustment"
• filter_value (optional): Value to filter the variable by

fred_get_series

Description: Retrieve data for any FRED series by its ID with support for transformations and date ranges.

Parameters:

• series_id (required): The FRED series ID (e.g., "GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL")
• observation_start (optional): Start date in YYYY-MM-DD format
• observation_end (optional): End date in YYYY-MM-DD format
• limit (optional): Maximum number of observations
• offset (optional): Number of observations to skip
• sort_order (optional): "asc" or "desc"
• units (optional): Data transformation:
  • "lin" (levels/no transformation)
  • "chg" (change from previous period)
  • "ch1" (change from year ago)
  • "pch" (percent change)
  • "pc1" (percent change from year ago)
  • "pca" (compounded annual rate of change)
  • "cch" (continuously compounded rate of change)
  • "log" (natural log)
• frequency (optional): Frequency aggregation ("d", "w", "m", "q", "a")
• aggregation_method (optional): "avg" (average), "sum", or "eop" (end of period)

Example Usage

With these three tools, you can:

• Browse all economic categories and discover available data
• Search for specific indicators by keywords or tags
• Retrieve any of the 800,000+ series with custom transformations
• Access real-time economic data including GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, and more

Social Media Shoutouts 📣

[!NOTE] Want to be featured? Tag Stefano Amorelli on LinkedIn or @stefanoamorelli on X in your post about using FRED MCP Server, or submit a PR to add your shoutout!

We're grateful for the community support! Here are some mentions from amazing people:

Testing

See TESTING.md for more details.

# Run all tests
pnpm test

# Run specific tests
pnpm test:registry

License ⚖️

This open-source project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). This means:

• You can use, modify, and distribute this software
• If you modify and distribute it, you must release your changes under AGPL-3.0
• If you run a modified version on a server, you must provide the source code to users
• See the LICENSE file for full details

For commercial licensing options or other licensing inquiries, please contact stefano@amorelli.tech.

© 2025 Stefano Amorelli