📌Overview

Purpose: To provide a secure Model Context Protocol (MCP) server facilitating efficient and safe interactions with MySQL databases for AI assistants.

Overview: The MySQL MCP Server serves as a controlled interface for AI assistants, enabling them to interact with MySQL databases. It simplifies database exploration, making it safer and more structured by allowing listing of tables, reading data, and executing SQL queries with secure access controls.

Key Features:

List Tables: Allows the server to list available MySQL tables as resources, aiding in navigation and selection of data.
SQL Query Execution: Facilitates execution of SQL queries with robust error handling, ensuring safe operations and preventing accidental data manipulation.
Secure Access: Utilizes environment variables to ensure secure database access, protecting sensitive credentials.
Comprehensive Logging: Implements thorough logging of operations for transparency and audit purposes, enhancing security and monitoring capabilities.

MySQL MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation that enables secure interaction with MySQL databases. This server component facilitates communication between AI applications (hosts/clients) and MySQL databases, making database exploration and analysis safer and more structured through a controlled interface.

Note: MySQL MCP Server is not designed to be used as a standalone server, but rather as a communication protocol implementation between AI applications and MySQL databases.

Features

List available MySQL tables as resources
Read table contents
Execute SQL queries with proper error handling
Secure database access through environment variables
Comprehensive logging

Installation

Manual Installation

pip install mysql-mcp-server

Installing via Smithery

To install MySQL MCP Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install mysql-mcp-server --client claude

Configuration

Set the following environment variables:

MYSQL_HOST=localhost     # Database host
MYSQL_PORT=3306          # Optional: Database port (defaults to 3306 if not specified)
MYSQL_USER=your_username
MYSQL_PASSWORD=your_password
MYSQL_DATABASE=your_database

Usage

With Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mysql": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory", 
        "path/to/mysql_mcp_server",
        "run",
        "mysql_mcp_server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "MYSQL_HOST": "localhost",
        "MYSQL_PORT": "3306",
        "MYSQL_USER": "your_username",
        "MYSQL_PASSWORD": "your_password",
        "MYSQL_DATABASE": "your_database"
      }
    }
  }
}

With Visual Studio Code

Add this to your mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "mysql": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "mysql-mcp-server",
        "mysql_mcp_server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "MYSQL_HOST": "localhost",
        "MYSQL_PORT": "3306",
        "MYSQL_USER": "your_username",
        "MYSQL_PASSWORD": "your_password",
        "MYSQL_DATABASE": "your_database"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: You will need to install uv for this to work.

Debugging with MCP Inspector

While MySQL MCP Server isn't intended to be run standalone or directly from the command line with Python, you can use the MCP Inspector to debug it.

The MCP Inspector provides a convenient way to test and debug your MCP implementation:

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
# Use the MCP Inspector for debugging (do not run directly with Python)

The MySQL MCP Server is designed to be integrated with AI applications like Claude Desktop and should not be run directly as a standalone Python program.

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/mysql_mcp_server.git
cd mysql_mcp_server

# Create virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # or `venv\Scripts\activate` on Windows

# Install development dependencies
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

# Run tests
pytest

Security Considerations

Never commit environment variables or credentials.
Use a database user with minimal required permissions.
Consider implementing query whitelisting for production use.
Monitor and log all database operations.

Security Best Practices

This MCP implementation requires database access to function. For security:

Create a dedicated MySQL user with minimal permissions.
Never use root credentials or administrative accounts.
Restrict database access to only necessary operations.
Enable logging for audit purposes.
Regular security reviews of database access.

See the MySQL Security Configuration Guide for detailed instructions on:

Creating a restricted MySQL user
Setting appropriate permissions
Monitoring database access
Security best practices

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Always follow the principle of least privilege when configuring database access.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
Open a Pull Request