Image MCP server

MCP Image Generator 🍌

Generate and edit images from Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, or any MCP client. mcp-image adds visual direction to your request before sending it to Gemini, OpenAI, or BytePlus Seedream.

Tell it what image to create or what to change in an existing image, and what it is for. The result is saved to disk and returned to your assistant.

What It Does

Before generating an image, mcp-image rewrites short requests into more specific prompts. It keeps what you asked for and fills in details such as composition, lighting, and camera angle. The more detail you provide, the less it changes.

You ask:

"A photo of a roast chicken dinner for a recipe site. It should look like it was actually cooked, and it should be partway through being carved so you can tell how juicy it is."

mcp-image sends to the image model:

"... a beautifully roasted whole chicken, golden-brown and glistening, resting on a rustic wooden cutting board. One leg is partially carved, revealing tender, succulent white meat and rich, glistening juices pooling around the carving knife ... shallow depth of field focused on the carved chicken."

Generated with Gemini using the default fast quality preset.

What carried through:

• for a recipe site: one clear subject, with everything else kept subordinate
• actually cooked: uneven browning and juices across the board
• partway through being carved: the cut face and slices beside it
• how juicy it is: close framing and shallow depth of field around the cut

Compare the same request with prompt enhancement turned off

Baseline from the same request, with prompt enhancement disabled.

Set SKIPPROMPTENHANCEMENT=true to send the original prompt to the image model unchanged.

Quick Start

You need Node.js 22 or later, an MCP-compatible client, and an API key for one image provider.

1. Get an API key

All three providers generate and edit images. Gemini is the default and requires the least configuration.

Google Search grounding is available with Gemini only. OpenAI may require organization verification before it can generate images.

The examples below use Gemini. Replace the provider settings if you prefer OpenAI or Seedream.

2. Configure your MCP client

Codex

Add this to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.mcp-image]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "mcp-image"]

[mcp_servers.mcp-image.env]
GEMINI_API_KEY = "your_gemini_api_key_here"
IMAGE_OUTPUT_DIR = "/absolute/path/to/images"

Cursor

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json for all projects, or .cursor/mcp.json in a project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-image": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-image"],
      "env": {
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your_gemini_api_key_here",
        "IMAGE_OUTPUT_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/images"
      }
    }
  }
}

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.