Summary

Assistants API management from a client that is not OpenAI's.

The useful part is the lifecycle: an assistant you are already talking to can create another one, attach the files it should search, and adjust its instructions — work that otherwise means the dashboard or a script. ask-openai is the smaller half, worth having when you want a second model's answer in the same conversation.

What it is

A bridge between MCP and the OpenAI API. It exposes a direct chat completion alongside the Assistants API — create, list, update and delete assistants, upload and manage the files they search over, and turn file_search on or off — so an assistant can build and maintain other assistants.

What you get

Ask-openai — put a question straight to a chosen model, with temperature and max_tokens
List-assistants and retrieve-assistant — the assistants on the account, and one of them by ID
Create-assistant — name, instructions, model, temperature, attached file IDs, and whether file_search is enabled
Update-assistant and delete-assistant — change any of those fields, or remove the assistant
Upload-file, list-files and delete-file — the files assistants search over

Requirements

An OpenAI API key, supplied as OPENAI_API_KEY or passed to the server as --openai-api-key. Install with pip install . from the repository; the client then runs mcp-server-openai over stdio. Model usage is billed by OpenAI at their published rates.

Setup effort

One command plus a key — uvx mcp-server-openai, then supply credentials