imgflip-mcp

imgflip-mcp

📚 Full documentation: mariokernich.github.io/imgflip-mcp

There's an MCP server for your database. One for your Kubernetes cluster. One for your cloud bill, one for your ticket system, and at least twelve for reading PDFs. Serious servers for serious work.

But somewhere along the way, the ecosystem forgot the workload that actually keeps engineering teams running: memes.

imgflip-mcp closes that gap. It's a Model Context Protocol server for the Imgflip meme generator API, so Claude (or any other MCP client) can browse thousands of meme templates and caption them mid-conversation — turning your AI assistant into the coworker who always has the right reaction image.

This meme was, of course, generated by imgflip-mcp itself.

You: "Make me a Drake meme about writing tests vs. testing in production" Claude: 🖼️ calls get_memes → calls caption_image → sends you the image link

Everything you need is a free Imgflip account. An Imgflip API Premium subscription is optional — it unlocks five extra tools (search, GIF captioning, automeme, AI memes), which stay hidden unless you explicitly enable them.

What would I even use this for?

More than you'd think. Once meme generation is one sentence away, it sneaks into real workflows:

• Docs people actually finish reading. Let Claude write your README section and cap it with a fitting meme — retention engineering at its finest.
• Release notes with a punchline. "v2.0: we rewrote everything" hits different next to an Expanding Brain meme of your migration steps.
• Code review, but kind. Answer the 400-line PR with a Two Buttons meme instead of a lecture. Same message, fewer hurt feelings.
• Retros & standups. Feed in the sprint summary, get the This Is Fine recap the team deserves.
• Incident postmortems. Nothing says "blameless" like a well-chosen Disaster Girl on the last slide.
• Slack announcements. Deploy freezes, on-call handovers, "the build is green again" — all measurably more effective as memes.

Is any of this necessary? No. Neither is syntax highlighting, and yet here we are.

Tools

Free tools (enabled by default)

Tool	Description	Imgflip endpoint	Requirements
get_memes	List the ~100 most popular meme templates, with optional name filtering	GET /get_memes	none
caption_image	Caption a template and get the generated image URL	POST /caption_image	free Imgflip account

These two tools cover the everyday use case end to end: find a template, put text on it, get the image URL.

Premium tools (optional, opt-in)

Tool	Description	Imgflip endpoint
search_memes	Search 1M+ templates by name	POST /search_memes
get_meme	Look up a single template by id	POST /get_meme
caption_gif	Caption an animated GIF template	POST /caption_gif
automeme	Auto-pick a template for a piece of text	POST /automeme
ai_meme	Let Imgflip's AI invent a whole meme	POST /ai_meme

These require an Imgflip API Premium subscription and are not registered by default, so free-tier users never see tools that would fail. If you have Premium, enable them by setting IMGFLIP_PREMIUM=true.

Extras

• Inline images: every meme-generating tool returns the result both as URL and as an embedded image (up to 2 MB), so clients like Claude Desktop render the meme directly in the chat.
• make-meme prompt: an MCP prompt that guides the model through template selection and captioning — pass a topic and optionally a template preference.
• Tool annotations: lookup tools are marked readOnlyHint so clients can auto-approve them safely.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• An Imgflip account (sign up for free) — required for every tool except get_memes

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
IMGFLIP_USERNAME	yes*	Your Imgflip username
IMGFLIP_PASSWORD	yes*	Your Imgflip password
IMGFLIP_PREMIUM	no	Set to true to also register the five Premium tools (default: off)

* Only get_memes works without credentials.

Note: The Imgflip API authenticates with username/password form fields — it does not offer API keys. Consider creating a dedicated Imgflip account for API use.

Installation

The server communicates over stdio, so your MCP client launches it as a subprocess — there is no port or daemon to manage. Pick whichever route fits your client:

Route	Best for	How
Desktop Extension (.mcpb)	Claude Desktop	download from Releases, double-click, fill in the credentials form — guide
Claude Code plugin	Claude Code	/plugin marketplace add mariokernich/imgflip-mcp, then /plugin install imgflip@imgflip-mcp — guide
VS Code button	Copilot users	click the Install in VS Code badge above — guide
npx	any other client	command npx, args ["-y", "imgflip-mcp"] — guide

Every client uses the same shape. For example, in Claude Desktop's claude_desktop_config.json or Cursor's .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "imgflip": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "imgflip-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "IMGFLIP_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "IMGFLIP_PASSWORD": "your-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or for Claude Code in one line:

claude mcp add imgflip \
  --env IMGFLIP_USERNAME=your-username \
  --env IMGFLIP_PASSWORD=your-password \
  -- npx -y imgflip-mcp

Add IMGFLIP_PREMIUM=true to the environment if you have API Premium. Then just ask:

"Make a Drake meme: top 'manually formatting code', bottom 'letting the linter do it'."

Documentation

Everything beyond the basics lives on the documentation site:

• Quickstart — from zero to first meme in five minutes
• Creating memes — the two-step workflow, multi-box templates, positioning, colors and fonts
• Tools reference — every tool, parameter and response
• Configuration and Premium tools
• FAQ & troubleshooting — missing credentials, links without images, tools not showing up, …
• Local development, architecture and publishing

Privacy

This server runs locally and is stateless: your Imgflip credentials and meme texts are sent exclusively to https://api.imgflip.com (which requires them for authentication and generation), and nothing is logged, stored, or sent anywhere else. Generated memes are hosted publicly on imgflip.com. Details in PRIVACY.md; Imgflip's own handling is covered by the Imgflip privacy policy.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the guidelines and CHANGELOG.md for release history. Something broken? Open an issue — ideally with the tool call that failed and your client.

This is an independent community project, not affiliated with Imgflip.

License

MIT