IBKR / Interactive Brokers MCP server

A local Interactive Brokers MCP server for trading research

Q: Is Canary an Interactive Brokers MCP server?

Yes. canary mcp runs locally as a stdio MCP server and reads account and market data from Interactive Brokers through IB Gateway or TWS.

Q: Which MCP clients can use Canary?

Canary works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, Continue, and other local stdio MCP hosts.

Q: Does Canary expose trading or order-entry tools?

Not in the standard downloads. The MCP bundle and the plain Canary tarballs are read-only builds with no place, modify, or cancel order tools compiled in. Each release also publishes a clearly marked canary-trading tarball for users who explicitly opt into order management; it ships with warnings and layered safeguards and is never installed by default.

Connect IB Gateway or TWS to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, and other MCP hosts. Review account authority, positions, broker-reporting status, retrospective Edge evidence, the daily brief, rulebook, Action Queue, and source quality through read-only tools.

Install View on GitHub Read MCP tools

canary mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canary": {
      "command": "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/canary",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Summary

Local stdio MCP Runs beside your AI host and talks to your local daemon over a Unix socket.

IB Gateway or TWS Uses Interactive Brokers' local API session; no hosted broker layer.

Workflow tools Read-only tools for health, account, positions, option strategies, technical evidence, broker-reporting status, the retrospective Edge review, the brief, rules, proposals, opportunities, settings, readiness, and order-lifecycle reads.

Controlled boundary The MCP server has no resources, settings writes, order previews, or execution tools.

What an assistant can do with it.

The MCP server is one adapter over a larger local desk. Canary's daemon evaluates account, statement, market, calendar, event, breadth, gamma, regime, stress, rulebook, proposal, and opportunity inputs. The reduced MCP surface exposes decision-relevant current and retrospective reads without publishing every sensor as a separate tool.

Everything flows through your own TWS or IB Gateway session. Coverage follows your IBKR subscriptions, market hours, and upstream source health; unavailable, stale, delayed, and held inputs remain explicit.

Account

Inspect portfolio state

Read net liquidation, cash, margin, buying power, positions, P&L, option legs, Greek coverage, and per-underlying exposure.

Desk brief

Read the current decision surface

Review market/session context, source health, the morning brief, and the converged Action Queue.

Edge

Review broker-confirmed history

Inspect adequately sampled stock and ETF decisions with fixed market context, plus separate broker-reported realized and dated open option evidence.

Rules

Inspect ranked findings

Read the 14-rule desk verdict and preserve every unknown or degraded input.

Action Queue

Review candidates

Read protection and option-exercise candidates without receiving preview or execution authority.

Technical

Analyze named symbols

Request daily trend, relative strength, ATR, and liquidity evidence for explicitly named stocks or ETFs.

Lifecycle

Read observed order state

Inspect open and historical local journal state without placing, changing, or cancelling an order.

What it does not expose.

The boundary is simple: the MCP server has read-only tools and no resources, settings writes, previews, or execution tools. Each release also publishes a separate, clearly marked canary-trading binary for constrained opt-in CLI and app order management; MCP remains read-only.

No MCP tool for placing orders.
No MCP tool for modifying orders.
No MCP tool for cancelling orders.
No hosted service with broker credentials.
No Python bridge or IBKR jar dependency for the bundled binary.

Install for Claude Desktop or shell.

Use the MCPB for Claude Desktop. Use the shell install for Cursor, Continue, Zed, terminal workflows, or other local MCP hosts.

Download MCPB for Claude Desktop

Open the .mcpb file with Claude Desktop, drag it into Claude Desktop, or install it from Claude Desktop settings. Requires IB Gateway 10.37+ or TWS running locally and an IBKR Pro account with TWS API access.

install

# Shell, Cursor, Continue, Zed, generic MCP hosts
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/osauer/canary/main/install.sh | sh
canary setup claude-desktop

Generic MCP config.

For Cursor, Continue, Zed, or another local MCP host, use an absolute path to the binary. ~ is not expanded by exec.

mcpServers

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canary": {
      "command": "/Users/you/.local/bin/canary",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Example questions.

These are the kinds of user requests the MCP descriptions are written to route correctly.

What's in my IBKR account?
Review my portfolio with Claude and rank the risks I should inspect today.
Show my SPY exposure, including option deltas.
What does the technical picture for SPY look like?
Read today's desk brief and summarize what needs attention.
Which rulebook findings are failing or unknown right now?
Are there open protection proposals for my positions?

Useful setup pages.

Start with Claude Desktop if that is where you plan to ask questions. The other pages cover TWS, Gateway, safety, and deeper portfolio-review context.

IBKR MCP

IBKR MCP server

Exact setup notes for the short IBKR MCP query.

TWS

IBKR MCP TWS setup

Use Trader Workstation as the local Interactive Brokers API process.

IB Gateway

IB Gateway MCP server

Use IB Gateway as the lighter local account and market-data bridge.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop Interactive Brokers setup

Install the MCPB and connect Claude Desktop to the local IBKR session.

Claude Code

Best IBKR MCP server for Claude Code

Compare IBKR MCP servers by local execution, tool coverage, and Claude Code fit.

Claude portfolio review

Portfolio review with Claude and IBKR

A prompt-driven review workflow for exposures, option risks, data freshness, and next checks.

Safety

Read-only MCP server

The local MCP surface exposes account and market data, not trading authority.

Why local?

Brokerage data is sensitive. canary keeps the broker connection on the machine already running IB Gateway or TWS and exposes a narrow local read-side interface to the AI host.

The daemon auto-discovers standard IB Gateway and TWS ports on loopback.
Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, and the shell can share one local daemon.
The Go library speaks the TWS protocol directly for custom systems.
Every data command supports JSON for scripting and agent tool wrappers.

FAQ.

Is Canary an Interactive Brokers MCP server?

Yes. canary mcp runs locally as a stdio MCP server and reads account and market data from Interactive Brokers through IB Gateway or TWS.

Which MCP clients can use it?

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, Continue, and other local stdio MCP hosts can launch it.

Does it expose trading tools?

Not in the standard downloads: the MCP bundle and the plain canary tarballs are read-only builds with no place, modify, or cancel order tools compiled in. Each release also publishes a clearly marked canary-trading tarball for users who explicitly opt into order management. It ships with warnings and layered safeguards.