⌁ labsco summary — our analysis, not the vendor's

What it is — An unofficial, community MCP server exposing read-only access to the Hardcover.app GraphQL API, so an AI can fetch books, book series, and a user's books.

What you get —

Namespaced tools — books.*, users.*, and series.*
Resources like hardcover/tag-categories and usage prompts such as hardcover/fantasy-this-year to guide safe, low-volume querying
Read-only design intended for gentle, rate-limit-respecting access

Requirements — Python 3.11+ and a Hardcover API key (a read-only Bearer token from hardcover.app/account/api). Despite an empty env list in metadata, the README requires HARDCOVER_API_KEY set to Bearer <token>.

Cost snapshot — free (no OSS license stated in the README); Hardcover's API key is free to obtain, so no paid service.

Setup effort — uv pip install -e . (or venv + pip), export the key, and run over STDIO — the only supported transport.

Our take — A pleasant, safety-minded reader for Hardcover users; the honest caveats are all in the README — it's unofficial and not affiliated with Hardcover.app, STDIO-only, read-only, and the API enforces rate limits, so keep limit<=10.

Source: the project README — summarized 2026-07-08.

⌁ readme from github — mirrored (latest on GitHub ↗)

Hardcover MCP

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes read-only access to the Hardcover.app GraphQL API. Tools are namespaced under books.*, users.*, and series.*, with resources and prompts to guide safe, low-volume querying.

This is an unofficial, community-maintained server and is not affiliated with Hardcover.app.

Transport Protocol

This server currently only supports STDIO as the transport protocol

Copy & paste — that's it

# Option A: with uv (recommended)
uv pip install -e .

# Option B: with pip
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Requirements

Python 3.11+
A Hardcover API key (read-only Bearer token) from https://hardcover.app/account/api

Installation

# Option A: with uv (recommended)
uv pip install -e .

# Option B: with pip
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Usage

Get an API key from https://hardcover.app/account/api. Copy the value exactly as provided (it already starts with Bearer ).
Export it for the server:

export HARDCOVER_API_KEY="Bearer <your-token>"

Running the server directly

Start the MCP server:

uv run src/hardcover_mcp/main.py

Configuring STDIO for a AI chat

Codex

[mcp_servers.hardcover_mcp]
command = "uv"
args = ["run", "src/hardcover_mcp/main.py"]
env = { "HARDCOVER_API_KEY" = "API KEY heRE" }
cwd = "full_path_to/hardcover_mcp"

The server registers the books.*, users.*, and series.* tool namespaces, plus resources like hardcover/tag-categories and usage prompts such as hardcover/fantasy-this-year.

Running the test suite

pytest

Troubleshooting

HARDCOVER_API_KEY environment variable is required: ensure the variable is set in the same shell you start the server. Include the leading Bearer prefix.
Hardcover API returned an error response or 401/403: confirm the token is valid and not expired.
Slow responses or timeouts: reduce limit/offset arguments; the API enforces rate limits. Start with limit<=10.
SSL/HTTP transport issues: check local network/proxy settings and retry with a stable connection.