MotherDuck MCP Server for Claude

Overview

The MotherDuck MCP Server is the official Model Context Protocol server for MotherDuck and DuckDB. It lets Claude run SQL analytics and explore schemas in natural language — against a cloud MotherDuck database (md:), a local DuckDB file, an in-memory database, or data in S3. It runs over stdio or HTTP via uvx mcp-server-motherduck and is licensed under MIT.

Key capabilities

• execute_query — run a SQL query against the connected database.
• list_databases — list available databases.
• list_tables — list tables and views.
• list_columns — describe a table's columns.
• switch_database_connection — switch databases (requires --allow-switch-databases).

How it compares

Several analytics-database MCP servers let Claude run SQL over columnar data; they differ in where the data lives:

Choose MotherDuck when you want DuckDB ergonomics that scale from a laptop to the cloud; the DuckDB and ClickHouse servers cover purely-embedded and large-scale-server analytics respectively.

Installation

Claude Code

# MotherDuck cloud:
claude mcp add motherduck -e motherduck_token=<your-token> -- uvx mcp-server-motherduck --db-path md:

# Local DuckDB file (read-only by default):
claude mcp add duckdb -- uvx mcp-server-motherduck --db-path /path/to/data.duckdb

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "motherduck": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-motherduck", "--db-path", "md:"],
      "env": {
        "motherduck_token": "<your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Requirements

• A MotherDuck token for cloud databases, or a local DuckDB file / :memory:.
• uv (uvx) and an MCP client (Claude Code or Claude Desktop).

Security

• The server defaults to read-only; add --read-write only when Claude needs to write.
• execute_query runs arbitrary SQL — scope the token and the connected database.
• Treat motherduck_token as a secret.

Source Verification Notes

Verified on 2026-06-17:

• The official repository github.com/motherduckdb/mcp-server-motherduck (MIT) documents uvx mcp-server-motherduck, the --db-path/--read-write/--allow-switch-databases flags, stdio and HTTP transports, the motherduck_token requirement, and the five tools above.
• MotherDuck's and DuckDB's documentation describe the underlying SQL engine.
• Claude Code's MCP documentation describes the connector setup pattern used here.