MCP - Cartesia Docs

The cartesia-mcp package exposes Cartesia through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) so MCP-capable clients—Cursor, Claude Desktop, OpenAI Agents, and similar—can list voices, run TTS and STT, manage pronunciation dictionaries, clone voices, and more without custom scripts.

Requirements

uv — runs the server via uvx with no global install
Python 3.13+ (installed automatically by uvx)
A Cartesia API key

Setup

Add this to your MCP config. You only need your API key. Cursor — .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json globally. Claude Desktop — Settings → Developer → Edit Config (claude_desktop_config.json).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cartesia-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["cartesia-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CARTESIA_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart the client (or refresh MCP in Cursor) and confirm cartesia-mcp is connected.

Try it

Ask your agent things like:

List all available Cartesia voices
Convert text to audio with a chosen voice (speed, volume, emotion)
Transcribe an audio file to text
Create a pronunciation dictionary and use it in TTS
Check credit usage for your account
Localize an existing voice into another language
Change an audio file to use a different voice

Tools

Tool	Description
`text_to_speech`	Convert text to audio; optional speed, volume, emotion, and pronunciation dict
`speech_to_text`	Batch-transcribe an audio file
`list_voices`	List available voices (filter by language, search, gender, etc.)
`get_voice`	Fetch metadata for a voice by ID
`clone_voice`	Clone a voice from an audio sample
`update_voice`	Update a cloned voice’s name or description
`delete_voice`	Delete a cloned voice
`voice_change`	Re-render audio with a different voice
`localize_voice`	Adapt a voice to another language or dialect
`list_pronunciation_dicts`	List pronunciation dictionaries
`create_pronunciation_dict`	Create a pronunciation dictionary
`get_pronunciation_dict`	Get a pronunciation dictionary by ID
`update_pronunciation_dict`	Update a pronunciation dictionary
`delete_pronunciation_dict`	Delete a pronunciation dictionary
`get_credit_usage`	Credit usage over time (admin API key)

See the cartesia-mcp source for parameters and return types.

Advanced configuration

Output directory

By default, generated audio is written to the server’s working directory. To choose a fixed folder, add OUTPUT_DIRECTORY to env:

"env": {
  "CARTESIA_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>",
  "OUTPUT_DIRECTORY": "~/cartesia-output"
}

Local audio files

Tools like speech_to_text and voice_change need paths to existing audio files on disk. Pass the full path to each file when prompting your agent.

Admin API key

Some tools call management endpoints that accept admin API keys only (sk_car_admin_...). To use get_credit_usage, set CARTESIA_ADMIN_API_KEY in env in addition to CARTESIA_API_KEY. Admin keys work only on management routes; API keys from play.cartesia.ai/keys do not work on those routes, and admin keys do not work on generation routes.Mint admin keys in the Playground under Keys → Admin (organization admins only).

"env": {
  "CARTESIA_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>",
  "CARTESIA_ADMIN_API_KEY": "<your-admin-api-key>"
}

API version

Cartesia MCP is built using Cartesia-Version: 2026-03-01.

cartesia-mcp

The official Cartesia MCP Server

Documentation Index

​Requirements

​Setup

​Try it

​Tools

​Output directory

​Local audio files

​Admin API key

​API version