🤗 HuggingMCP - Hugging Face Model Context Protocol Server

Give Claude superpowers with Hugging Face! 🚀

HuggingMCP is a comprehensive Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows Claude and other MCP-compatible AI assistants to interact seamlessly with the Hugging Face ecosystem. Create models, manage datasets, edit files, organize collections, and much more - all through natural language!

✨ Features

🏗️ Repository Management

• Create repositories (models, datasets, spaces) with custom settings
• Delete repositories (admin mode required)
• Get detailed repository information and metadata
• List repository files and directory structures

📝 Advanced File Operations

• Read files from any Hugging Face repository (public/private)
• Write/upload files with custom content
• Precise file editing with exact text replacement (old_text → new_text)
• Delete files from repositories
• Binary file support for non-text files

🔍 Search & Discovery

• Search models with filters (author, tags, popularity)
• Search datasets across all of Hugging Face
• Search Spaces and demo applications
• Advanced filtering by downloads, likes, creation date
• Comprehensive metadata for all results

📚 Collections Management

• Create collections to organize repositories
• Add items to collections (models, datasets, spaces, papers)
• Manage collection metadata and descriptions
• Get collection information and item lists

🔒 Security & Permissions

• Token-based authentication with Hugging Face
• Permission controls: read-only, write-only, admin modes
• File size limits to prevent abuse
• Comprehensive error handling

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+ installed on your system
• Claude Desktop application (Download here)
• Hugging Face account and access token (Get token here)

Installation

1. Create a project directory:

mkdir huggingmcp && cd huggingmcp

2. Save the main.py file from the artifact in your project directory

3. Install dependencies:

# Install uv package manager (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Create virtual environment and install dependencies
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
uv add "mcp[cli]" huggingface_hub

Configuration

1. Open Claude Desktop settings:

   • Go to Settings → Developer
   • Click "Edit Config" to open claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add HuggingMCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "huggingmcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/YOUR/huggingmcp",
        "run",
        "main.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "HF_TOKEN": "your-hf-token-here",
        "HF_ADMIN_MODE": "true",
        "HF_READ_ONLY": "false",
        "HF_WRITE_ONLY": "false",
        "HF_MAX_FILE_SIZE": "100000000"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/YOUR/huggingmcp with the actual absolute path to your project directory.

Environment Variables:

• HF_TOKEN: Your Hugging Face access token (required)
• HF_READ_ONLY: Set to "true" to allow only read operations (optional)
• HF_WRITE_ONLY: Set to "true" to allow only write operations (optional)
• HF_ADMIN_MODE: Set to "true" to enable repository deletion (optional)
• HF_MAX_FILE_SIZE: Maximum file size in bytes (optional)

3. Restart Claude Desktop to load the MCP server

4. Verify connection: Look for the 🔨 hammer icon in Claude Desktop, indicating MCP tools are available.

🎯 Usage Examples

Once connected, you can use natural language to interact with Hugging Face:

🏗️ Repository Operations

"Create a new model repository called 'my-awesome-model' with a custom README"
"Show me information about the 'microsoft/DialoGPT-medium' model"
"List all files in the 'squad' dataset repository"
"Delete my test repository (admin mode required)"

📝 File Management

"Read the README.md file from 'gpt2' model repository"
"Create a new config.json file in my model repo with these settings: {...}"
"Edit the training script and replace 'learning_rate=0.001' with 'learning_rate=0.0001'"
"Delete the old_model.bin file from my repository"

🔍 Search & Discovery

"Find the top 10 most downloaded text classification models"
"Search for datasets related to sentiment analysis by huggingface"
"Show me recent Gradio spaces for image generation"
"Find models tagged with 'pytorch' and 'transformer'"

📚 Collections

"Create a new collection called 'My Favorite Models'"
"Add the 'bert-base-uncased' model to my collection with a note"
"Show me all items in the 'best-nlp-models' collection"

🛡️ Security & Permissions

HuggingMCP includes comprehensive permission controls:

Permission Modes

Mode	Description	Use Case
Default	Full read/write access	Development and experimentation
Read Only	Can only read repositories and files	Safe exploration mode
Write Only	Can only create/modify (no deletion)	Content creation workflows
Admin Mode	Full access including deletion	Advanced repository management

Setting Permissions

Via Environment Variables:

export HF_READ_ONLY=true   # Enable read-only mode
export HF_WRITE_ONLY=true  # Enable write-only mode
export HF_ADMIN_MODE=true  # Enable admin mode

Via Claude Commands:

"Set HuggingMCP to read-only mode"
"Enable admin mode for repository deletion"
"Show me my current permissions"

🧩 Available Tools

HuggingMCP exposes the following tools to Claude:

Configuration & Testing

• hf_test - Test server functionality and connection
• get_hf_config - Get current configuration and capabilities
• hf_whoami - Get current authenticated user info

Repository Management

• hf_create_repository - Create new repos (models/datasets/spaces)
• hf_delete_repository - Delete repos (admin mode required)
• hf_get_repository_info - Get repo metadata and details
• hf_list_repository_files - List all files in a repository

File Operations

• hf_read_file - Read file content from repositories
• hf_write_file - Write/upload files to repositories
• hf_edit_file - Precise text replacement editing
• hf_delete_file - Delete specific files from repositories

Search & Discovery

• hf_search_models - Search Hugging Face models
• hf_search_datasets - Search Hugging Face datasets
• hf_search_spaces - Search Hugging Face Spaces

Collections

• hf_collection_create - Create new collections
• hf_collection_add - Add items to collections
• hf_collection_info - Get collection details and items

🔧 Configuration Options

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
HF_TOKEN	None	Your Hugging Face access token (required)
HF_READ_ONLY	false	Enable read-only mode
HF_WRITE_ONLY	false	Enable write-only mode
HF_ADMIN_MODE	false	Enable admin operations (repository deletion)
HF_MAX_FILE_SIZE	100000000	Maximum file size in bytes (100MB default)

Claude Desktop Config

Basic Configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "huggingmcp": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/path/to/main.py"],
      "env": {
        "HF_TOKEN": "your-hf-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Advanced Configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "huggingmcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory", "/path/to/huggingmcp",
        "run", "main.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "HF_TOKEN": "your-hf-token-here",
        "HF_ADMIN_MODE": "true",
        "HF_READ_ONLY": "false",
        "HF_WRITE_ONLY": "false",
        "HF_MAX_FILE_SIZE": "100000000"
      }
    }
  }
}

🐛 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

1. "Connection failed" in Claude Desktop

• Verify the absolute path in your config is correct
• Check that main.py exists in the specified directory
• Ensure Python/uv is accessible from the command line

2. "Authentication required" errors

• Verify your HF_TOKEN is valid at https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens
• Ensure the token has appropriate permissions (read/write)
• Check that the token is correctly set in the Claude Desktop config env section
• Test with "Who am I currently logged in as?" to verify authentication

3. "Permission denied" errors

• Check your permission settings with get_hf_config
• Verify you're not in read-only mode for write operations
• Ensure admin mode is enabled for deletion operations

4. General debugging tips

• Check the file exists and you have permissions to access it
• Verify the repository name and file path are correct
• Ensure you're not in read-only mode for write operations

Debug Logs

Check Claude Desktop MCP logs:

• macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp.log
• Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/Logs/mcp.log

Enable verbose logging in main.py:

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

Getting Help

1. Check the logs in Claude Desktop's MCP log files
2. Verify configuration using the get_hf_config tool
3. Test authentication with hf_whoami
4. Test basic functionality with hf_test
5. Start simple with read operations before trying writes

🤝 Contributing

Found a bug or want to add a feature? Here's how you can help:

1. Report Issues: Open an issue describing the problem
2. Feature Requests: Suggest new Hugging Face integrations
3. Code Contributions: Submit pull requests with improvements
4. Documentation: Help improve these docs!

📄 License

MIT License - feel free to use, modify, and distribute!

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Anthropic for creating the Model Context Protocol
• Hugging Face for their amazing platform and APIs
• FastMCP team for the excellent Python SDK

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Happy prompting with HuggingMCP! 🤗✨

Now Claude can be your AI pair programmer for all things Hugging Face with 17 powerful tools!