boe-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives Claude Code — or any MCP client — live Bank of England base rate data: the current rate and how long it has been held, the history of recent rate changes, and the date of the next Monetary Policy Committee announcement. It runs over stdio by default (with an opt-in Streamable HTTP mode for remote hosting), needs no API key or configuration, and caches responses in memory so repeated questions don't re-hit the BoE.

Published on npm as boe-mcp with build provenance — install and run it with npx -y boe-mcp.

Tools

| Tool | Description | Example output | |------|-------------|----------------| | get_current_rate | Current base rate, effective date, months held at this level | { "rate": 3.75, "effectiveDate": "2025-12-18", "monthsHeld": 6, "source": "https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/iadb/...", "cachedAt": "2026-07-07T04:11:28Z" } | | get_rate_history | Last N rate changes (default 10) — date, rate, move in basis points vs previous (null for the earliest known entry) | { "entries": [{ "date": "2025-12-18", "rate": 3.75, "changeBps": -25 }, ...], "source": "...", "cachedAt": "..." } | | get_rate_at | The base rate in force on a specific historical date | { "date": "2020-03-15", "rate": 0.25, "effectiveDate": "2020-03-11", "source": "...", "cachedAt": "..." } | | get_rate_stats | Summary statistics of the base rate over a date range (optional from/to, default full history): min/max with the date each level first applied, time-weighted average, start/end rates and net move in basis points | { "from": "2025-01-01", "to": "2025-12-31", "min": { "rate": 3.75, "date": "2025-12-18" }, "max": { "rate": 4.75, "date": "2025-01-01" }, "average": 4.2514, "startRate": 4.75, "endRate": 3.75, "changeBps": -100, "source": "...", "cachedAt": "..." } | | get_next_mpc_meeting | Date of the next scheduled MPC announcement and days until it | { "date": "2026-07-30", "daysUntil": 23, "source": "https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/upcoming-mpc-dates", "cachedAt": "..." } | | get_mpc_dates | All upcoming MPC announcement dates on the published schedule, each with days until it | { "dates": [{ "date": "2026-07-30", "daysUntil": 23 }, { "date": "2026-09-17", "daysUntil": 72 }, ...], "source": "https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/upcoming-mpc-dates", "cachedAt": "..." } | | list_series | Curated catalog of well-known IADB series (policy rates, market rates, FX, household rates) with code, name, description, unit and frequency — a starting point for get_series | { "series": [{ "code": "IUDSOIA", "name": "SONIA (Sterling Overnight Index Average)", "description": "...", "unit": "percent per annum", "frequency": "daily (business days)" }, ...], "note": "get_series also accepts any other IADB code..." } | | get_series | Fetch observations for any BoE IADB series by code, with optional from/to ISO dates and a limit (1–500, default 50) on the most recent points | { "seriesCode": "IUDSOIA", "name": "SONIA (Sterling Overnight Index Average)", "unit": "percent per annum", "frequency": "daily (business days)", "points": [{ "date": "2025-12-19", "value": 3.69 }, ...], "source": "...", "cachedAt": "..." } |

get_series accepts any valid IADB code (not only the catalogued ones); an unknown or empty code returns a clean Unknown or empty IADB series "XXXX" — use list_series for known codes message. Use list_series to discover codes.

If the BoE is unreachable and a previously cached value exists, tools serve the cached data with "stale": true so the caller can flag the caveat. With no cache at all they return a clean error message.

Installation

Add to your Claude Code settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or use the CLI:

claude mcp add boe -- npx -y boe-mcp

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "boe": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "boe-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

HTTP mode (remote hosting)

By default the server speaks MCP over stdio as a child process of the client. To host it remotely instead, start it in Streamable HTTP mode:

npx -y boe-mcp --http                  # listen on http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp
npx -y boe-mcp --http 8080             # explicit port
BOE_MCP_HTTP_PORT=8080 npx -y boe-mcp  # env var instead of the flag

| Setting | How | Default | |---------|-----|---------| | Enable HTTP mode | --http flag or BOE_MCP_HTTP_PORT env var | off (stdio) | | Port | --http <port>, else BOE_MCP_HTTP_PORT, else 3000 | 3000 | | Bind host | BOE_MCP_HTTP_HOST | 127.0.0.1 |

Endpoints: POST /mcp (JSON-RPC), GET /healthz (returns ok, for hosting platform health checks). The transport is stateless — every POST is served by a fresh server instance, so there are no sessions to resume and no SSE stream; GET/DELETE /mcp return 405. That makes instances safe to scale horizontally behind a load balancer.

Try it with curl:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"curl","version":"0"}}}'

Security: the default bind of 127.0.0.1 only accepts connections from the local machine, and DNS-rebinding protection (Host-header validation) is enabled automatically for loopback binds. Setting BOE_MCP_HTTP_HOST=0.0.0.0 exposes the server, with no authentication, to every network the machine is attached to — only do that behind a reverse proxy or firewall that controls who can reach it (DNS-rebinding protection is disabled for non-loopback binds, since the server can't know the legitimate public hostname).

Configuration

| Env var | Default | Description | |---------|---------|-------------| | BOE_CACHE_TTL_MINUTES | 60 | How long to cache BoE responses in memory (0 disables caching) | | BOE_MCP_HTTP_PORT | unset | Enable HTTP mode on this port (see HTTP mode) | | BOE_MCP_HTTP_HOST | 127.0.0.1 | Bind host for HTTP mode — 0.0.0.0 exposes the server to the network; see the security note above |

Data sources

• Base rate: the Bank of England Statistical Interactive Database (IADB), series IUDBEDR, via its public CSV endpoint. No auth, no key. Honest caveat: the IADB is not officially documented as a public API — it has been stable for many years and is widely used, but the Bank makes no compatibility promises, so a breaking change is possible in principle.
• MPC dates: parsed from the BoE's public upcoming MPC dates page. The parser deliberately avoids depending on the page's markup (it scans the visible text for dates), so cosmetic redesigns won't break it.

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/moureauf/boe-mcp.git
cd boe-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start            # runs the stdio server

Test and inspect:

npm test             # unit tests (HTTP mocked, no network)
npm run test:live    # integration smoke test against the real BoE endpoints
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

BOE_IADB_BASE_URL and BOE_MPC_DATES_URL can override the endpoint URLs, which is useful for testing against fixtures.

Contributing & releasing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development workflow (making changes, testing, adding tools, versioning) and how the release pipeline connects GitHub, npm, and the MCP registry. Publishing is automated: pushing a v* tag runs .github/workflows/publish.yml, which builds, tests, and publishes to npm via trusted publishing (OIDC — no token secret, with a provenance attestation) and to the official MCP registry. Exact commands and one-time setup are in RELEASING.md.

License

MIT