ThumbAPI MCP Server — Generate Thumbnails Directly from Your AI Agent

The official @thumbapi/mcp-server exposes ThumbAPI as a native Model Context Protocol tool. Runs locally over stdio, Node.js 18+, invoked via npx — nothing to clone, nothing to build. Three steps and you're generating.

1. Install

Pick your MCP client. One-click where the client supports it, one-line CLI on Claude Code, or paste the JSON into the client's config file. No API key goes in the config — Step 2 handles that.

Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Windsurf, Cline, Continue.dev — install manually:

claude mcp add thumbapi -- npx -y @thumbapi/mcp-server

Not sure where the config file lives? Per-client reference on modelcontextprotocol.io.

2. Authorize

In your agent chat, type log in to thumbapi. The agent invokes the login tool, a browser opens app.thumbapi.dev/mcp-login, you click Authorize, and the key is written to ~/.thumbapi/config.json (mode 0600). Every future call reads from there.

3. Ask your agent to generate

Prompt in plain English. The agent picks the right parameters and calls the tool.

Generate a YouTube thumbnail with the title "How I Ship Features in 30 Minutes".

Response

Every successful call returns the fields below. The agent renders the image inline in the chat automatically — the raw shape is here so you know what you can pipe into follow-up steps.

{
  "image": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAA...",
  "format": "Blog Post / OG Image",
  "outputFormat": "png",
  "generationId": "jrIgKpc5KaHkMKBiCPNl",
  "imageUrl": "https://cdn.thumbapi.dev/users/<uid>/generations/jrIgKpc5KaHkMKBiCPNl.png"
}

• image — data URL with the base64-encoded file. Use it when you need to display or embed the bytes without a network hop.
• imageUrl — public Cloudflare R2 CDN link to the same file. Use it when you want to hand the result off to another tool without re-encoding.
• generationId — stable ID you can pass to feedback / logging endpoints on the ThumbAPI dashboard.
• format / outputFormat — echoed target platform label and image encoding.

Formats & categories