Read-only MCP server for Interactive Brokers

Updated: 2026-08-10 08:25 CEST

canary mcp is intentionally a read-only MCP server for Interactive Brokers. It gives AI assistants account and market context from IB Gateway or TWS, but it does not expose a place-order, modify-order, or cancel-order tool.

The read-only boundary is what makes the rest of the platform workable. Because agents hold no order-entry tools, the daily brief, rulebook, protection proposals, and opportunity review can use daemon-owned portfolio and market context without gaining execution authority.

This page describes the standard downloads: the installer, the Claude Desktop bundle, and the plain canary tarballs. Releases also publish a separate, clearly marked canary-trading tarball for users who explicitly opt into order management; nothing on this page applies to that variant, and it is never installed by default.

This is a capability boundary, not a claim that market data is complete. Account and market inputs still depend on the connected account's entitlements, the market session, and source freshness.

What read-only means here

Allowed surfaces include:

• the assembled daily brief, read without signing off or changing process state
• account summary, cash, margin, buying power, daily P&L
• positions, option legs, marks, and Greek coverage
• named-symbol daily technical evidence and daemon-composed market/session context
• rulebook snapshots, protection-proposal and option-exercise opportunity reads, and platform-settings reads
• open-order, order-history, and order-status journal reads

Not exposed:

• no order placement
• no order modification
• no order cancellation
• no hosted broker credential store
• no remote service sitting between the assistant and IBKR

Why this matters for agents

Agentic workflows are useful for analysis: "what do I own?", "what changed today?", "which positions carry option delta?", "what does the desk brief flag today?", and "which rulebook findings need attention?". Those questions need account and market data, not order-entry authority.

canary keeps that boundary explicit. The MCP tool list is generated from the same source as the CLI documentation, and the public references call out that lifecycle and trading verbs stay outside the MCP surface.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/osauer/canary/main/install.sh | sh
canary status

For Claude Desktop, install:

https://github.com/osauer/canary/releases/latest/download/canary.mcpb

For a generic local MCP host:

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

Good assistant prompts

• "What do I need to know before the open?"
• "Summarize my IBKR account and positions."
• "Show positions by underlying and include option Greeks."
• "Which inputs in today's brief are stale, degraded, or held?"
• "Which rulebook or Action Queue rows need attention?"

If the assistant tries to trade through canary mcp, it has reached outside the tool's capability boundary.

References

• IBKR MCP server for the main server overview.
• Working with agents for example conversations.
• MCP tools reference for the read-only tool inventory.