mcp-kraken

> [!WARNING]

> Alpha software. Interfaces and defaults may change in any minor release

> until v1.0. No liability for any financial loss, missed trades or

> misrouted withdrawals. Not financial advice. Not affiliated with Kraken or

> Payward Inc. See the full Disclaimer below before granting

> the server credentials with trading or withdrawal permissions.

An MCP server that exposes the Kraken cryptocurrency

exchange Spot REST API over HTTP, secured with bearer tokens you manage

locally.

• Full Kraken Spot REST surface, mapped to typed MCP tools.
• Proactive API-key permission detection — calls that the key cannot perform

are rejected before they leave the box, with a clear error.

• Built-in token CLI: generate, list, and revoke bearer tokens used by HTTP

clients to authenticate against the MCP itself.

• `GET /health` liveness probe — no credentials required; safe for Docker

healthchecks, Kubernetes probes, and load-balancer pings.

• Single-process, stateless beyond the SQLite token store; ready for

containerised deployment behind a reverse proxy.

WebSocket v2 and FIX transports are explicitly out of scope for the first

release — see `TODO.md`.

Architecture

┌────────────┐    HTTPS / bearer    ┌───────────────┐    HMAC-signed    ┌─────────┐
│ MCP client │ ───────────────────▶ │  mcp-kraken   │ ─────────────────▶│ Kraken  │
│ (Claude…)  │ ◀─────────────────── │  FastMCP HTTP │ ◀───────────────  │ REST v0 │
└────────────┘                      └───────────────┘                   └─────────┘
                                          │
                                          ▼
                                   SQLite (bearer-token hashes)

Two authentication boundaries:

Requirements

• Python `>=3.12`
• uv for dependency management
• just for the dev command runner (optional)
• A Kraken Spot API key — generate one in

Account → Security → API. The

permissions you enable on the key directly determine which MCP tools succeed

(see Permissions below).

Quick start

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/XavierBeheydt/mcp-kraken.git
cd mcp-kraken
uv sync --dev

# Configure
cp .env.example .env
$EDITOR .env  # set KRAKEN_API_KEY and KRAKEN_API_SECRET

# Issue a bearer token for your MCP client
uv run mcp-kraken token create "claude-desktop" --expires-in 90d
# → copy the printed token; it will never be shown again

# Start the HTTP server (defaults to 0.0.0.0:8765/mcp)
uv run mcp-kraken serve

Point your MCP client at `http://localhost:8765/mcp/` and authenticate with

the bearer token. Two methods are supported:

The server strips `?apikey=` from the URL before forwarding to the MCP

layer, and redacts it from access logs (`apikey=***`).

CLI

mcp-kraken serve              # run the HTTP server
mcp-kraken token create NAME  # mint a new bearer token (printed once)
mcp-kraken token list         # list known tokens (hashes only)
mcp-kraken token revoke ID    # revoke a token by id
mcp-kraken version            # print the installed version

`token create` accepts `--expires-in 90d` (or `12h`, `30m`, `3600` seconds).

Omit it for a token that never expires. The full plaintext is only shown once

at creation — the server only stores the SHA-256 hash plus the short id.

Local testing with Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop accepts MCP servers either as a remote HTTPS connector or as a

local command (stdio). Pure self-signed certs are rejected — the cert has to

be signed by a CA the OS trusts.

Option A — HTTPS via mkcert (Custom Connector)

`mkcert` creates a local CA, installs

it into the system trust store, and signs certs from it.

brew install mkcert            # or your package manager's equivalent
just cert-local                # mkcert -install + generates certs/{key,cert}.pem
just serve-https               # serves HTTPS on 0.0.0.0:8765/mcp

Then in Claude Desktop: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, with

URL `https://localhost:8765/mcp/` and the bearer token from

`mcp-kraken token create`.

> Tip — Claude Desktop cannot set custom headers. If the connector UI

> has no "Authorization header" field, append the token as a query param

> instead: `https://localhost:8765/mcp/?apikey=mck_…`

> The server converts it to a proper `Authorization: Bearer` header

> internally and redacts the value from its access logs.

Option B — stdio (Command Connector)

For purely local use you can skip HTTPS entirely:

uv run mcp-kraken serve --stdio

Wire it into Claude Desktop's config file (`claude_desktop_config.json`):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kraken": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/abs/path/to/mcp-kraken", "run", "mcp-kraken", "serve", "--stdio"],
      "env": {
        "KRAKEN_API_KEY": "...",
        "KRAKEN_API_SECRET": "..."
      }
    }
  }
}

stdio sessions are inherently local — the bearer-token layer is bypassed.

Configuration

Settings come from environment variables, optionally loaded from `.env`:

The full sample lives in `.env.example`.

Tools

Public market-data tools (no Kraken credentials needed):

`get_server_time`, `get_system_status`, `get_assets`, `get_asset_pairs`,

`get_ticker`, `get_ohlc`, `get_order_book`, `get_recent_trades`,

`get_recent_spreads`.

Private tools (require `KRAKEN_API_KEY` + `KRAKEN_API_SECRET`):

• Account: `get_account_balance`, `get_extended_balance`,

`get_trade_balance`, `get_trade_volume`, `get_ledgers`, `query_ledgers`,

`get_credit_lines`, `get_api_key_info`, `request_export_report`,

`get_export_status`, `retrieve_export`, `remove_export`.

• Trading: `get_open_orders`, `get_closed_orders`, `query_orders`,

`get_trade_history`, `query_trades`, `get_open_positions`, `add_order`,

`add_order_batch`, `amend_order`, `edit_order`, `cancel_order`,

`cancel_all_orders`, `cancel_all_orders_after`, `cancel_order_batch`.

• Funding: `get_deposit_methods`, `get_deposit_addresses`,

`get_deposit_status`, `get_withdrawal_methods`, `get_withdrawal_addresses`,

`get_withdrawal_info`, `withdraw`, `get_withdrawal_status`,

`cancel_withdrawal`, `wallet_transfer`.

• Earn: `list_earn_strategies`, `list_earn_allocations`, `allocate_earn`,

`deallocate_earn`, `get_earn_allocation_status`,

`get_earn_deallocation_status`.

• Subaccounts: `create_subaccount`, `account_transfer`.
• WebSocket auth: `get_websockets_token` (token for the future WS layer —

see `TODO.md`).

Kraken API key permissions

Kraken keys can be issued with any subset of:

On the first private call, `mcp-kraken` introspects the key via

`GetAPIKeyInfo` and caches the resulting permission set. Subsequent tool

invocations are checked against that cache; missing permissions raise

`KrakenPermissionError` with the list of flags the key would need. If the

introspection itself fails (older keys may not support `GetAPIKeyInfo`), the

server falls back to letting Kraken enforce permissions over the wire.

IP restrictions, expiry, query date ranges, and custom nonce windows are

configured on the key itself in the Kraken UI; the server passes through

whatever the key allows.

Development

just sync          # uv sync --all-extras --dev
just test          # pytest
just check         # lint + format-check + mypy + tests
just fix           # auto-fix lint and format
just docker-build  # local image build

Run `just` with no arguments for the full recipe list.

Docker

The published image is `ghcr.io/xavierbeheydt/mcp-kraken`:

The reference deployment uses `compose.yml`:

cp .env.example .env  # set KRAKEN_API_KEY / KRAKEN_API_SECRET
docker compose up -d

The container runs as a non-root user (`uid 10001`), with a read-only root

filesystem, no added capabilities, and a SQLite token-store volume at

`/data`. Put it behind a TLS-terminating reverse proxy in production — the

server speaks plain HTTP internally.

Health endpoint

`GET /health` returns `200 {"status":"ok"}` without a bearer token — safe

for orchestrators, load balancers, and uptime monitors:

curl http://localhost:8765/health
# {"status":"ok"}

Both the `Dockerfile` `HEALTHCHECK` and `compose.yml` use this endpoint.

Versioning & release flow

Versions are derived from git tags via

hatch-vcs; there is no version number

to bump in `pyproject.toml`.

feature → PR → dev   →  dev-publish workflow → ghcr.io/…:dev[-sha]
                                                      ↑
                                                test workflow

                  tag v1.2.3  →  release workflow    → ghcr.io/…:1.2.3, :latest
                                                      + GitHub Release
                                                      + fast-forward main to the tag

Branch conventions:

• `main` — protected; always equals the latest released commit.
• `dev` — default integration branch; every push runs tests and republishes

the `:dev` image.

• topic branches → PR into `dev`.
• Releases are cut by tagging the desired `dev` commit `vX.Y.Z`. The release

workflow tests it, builds and pushes the image with semver tags, opens a

GitHub Release with auto-generated notes, and fast-forwards `main` to the

tag. If `main` cannot be fast-forwarded (e.g. `main` has diverged) the

workflow emits a warning and leaves the merge for a human.

To prerelease, tag `v1.2.3-rc1`: the workflow builds and pushes

`1.2.3-rc1`, `1.2-rc1`, `1-rc1`, marks the GitHub Release as prerelease, and

does not publish the `:latest` tag.

Disclaimer

> [!CAUTION]

> Read this section before pointing `mcp-kraken` at a Kraken API key with

> trading or withdrawal permissions.

Alpha software. Tool signatures, default behaviours, configuration keys

and the on-disk token format may change in any minor release until v1.0.

Run a non-production instance against a read-only Kraken API key first,

and read each tool's docstring before granting the server credentials with

trading or withdrawal permissions.

No liability. The software is provided *as is*, without warranty of any

kind, express or implied. The author is not responsible for any direct,

indirect, incidental, or consequential financial loss arising from the use,

misuse or unavailability of this software — including but not limited to

misrouted withdrawals, unintended trades, missed executions, exchange

downtime, API rate-limit hits, or compromised credentials.

Not financial advice. Nothing in this software, its documentation, or

any tool output constitutes investment, trading, tax or legal advice. You

are solely responsible for the decisions you make and the orders you submit.

Not affiliated with Kraken or Payward Inc. "Kraken" is a trademark of

its respective owner. This project is an independent client of the public

Kraken REST API, written against the publicly documented API surface.