Tapo MCP

tapo-mcp

MCP server that exposes Tapo smart-home devices as AI-callable tools and resources via the Model Context Protocol.

Built on the tapo crate and the rmcp SDK. Runs as an HTTP server (Streamable HTTP transport).

Example Prompts

"List all my Tapo devices"

"Turn off the office light"

"Turn on smart plug 4 on the power strip"

"Is the office light on?"

"Set the bedroom light to 50% brightness"

"Change the living room light to Coral"

"Take a snapshot from the baby monitor"

"What's the temperature in the kitchen?"

"Show me the last 24 hours of temperature from the living room temperature and humidity sensor"

"List the 5 most recent events on the smart button"

"How much energy did the washing machine plug use each day this month?"

"Show me the TV's power draw over the last 6 hours"

Tools

Tool	Description
list_devices	List available Tapo devices on the network (includes set and get capabilities).
check_device	Verify a device ID matches at a given IP.
get_device_state	Get a device's current state (e.g. {"type": "DeviceInfo"}). Checks the capability's parameters, then runs check_device.
control_device	Control a device by applying 1 to 12 set capabilities, in order. Checks the count and values, then runs check_device; a capability the device does not support fails before any is applied.
take_snapshot	Capture a still JPEG snapshot from a Tapo camera (~640x360), with the device id, capture time and size as text, plus a short-lived link when TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL is set (see Snapshot links). Runs check_device first.

Resources

URI	Description
tapo://devices	JSON list of discovered Tapo devices.

Capabilities

Devices and child devices expose separate lists of set and get capabilities they support. Child devices have no IP of their own; their ip is their parent's, which is the one to pass with the child's id.

Set Capabilities

Capability	Description
Brightness	Set the device brightness (1-100)
Color	Set the device color using a preset name
OnOff	Turn the device on or off

Get Capabilities

Capability	Description
Detections	Read the detections stored on a camera's SD card, with the events detected (person, motion, ...), for up to 24 hours (C120, C210, C220, C225, C325WB, C520WS, TC40, TC70)
DeviceInfo	Read the device's current state
EnergyDataHourly	Read the energy used per hour, in Wh, for up to 8 days (P110, P110M, P115, P304M, P316M)
EnergyDataDaily	Read the energy used per day, in Wh, for a quarter of a year (P110, P110M, P115, P304M, P316M)
EnergyDataMonthly	Read the energy used per month, in Wh, for a year (P110, P110M, P115, P304M, P316M)
PowerDataEvery5Minutes	Read the power draw every 5 minutes, in W, for up to 12 hours (P110, P110M, P115, P304M, P316M)
PowerDataHourly	Read the power draw every hour, in W, for up to 6 days (P110, P110M, P115, P304M, P316M)
Snapshot	Capture a still JPEG snapshot. Served by the dedicated take_snapshot tool (binary, not JSON state)
TemperatureHumidityRecords	Read the last 24 hours of temperature and humidity records (T310, T315) at 15 minute intervals
TriggerLogs	Read paginated trigger logs from a hub child sensor (S200, T100, T110, T300)

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables prefixed with TAPO_MCP_:

Variable	Required	Default	Description
TAPO_MCP_USERNAME	Yes	—	Tapo account email
TAPO_MCP_PASSWORD	Yes	—	Tapo account password
TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_USERNAME	No	—	Camera account username1. Required by take_snapshot.
TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_PASSWORD	No	—	Camera account password1. Required by take_snapshot.
TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TARGET	Yes	—	Network target for device discovery (e.g. 192.168.1.255)
TAPO_MCP_HTTP_ADDR	No	127.0.0.1:3000	Address the server listens on
TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TIMEOUT	No	5	Discovery timeout in seconds. Must be between 1 and 602
TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_INTERVAL	No	600	Seconds between background discoveries that refresh the device list. Must be at least TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TIMEOUT and at most 86400 (one day)2
TAPO_MCP_API_KEY	No	—	Bearer token for HTTP authentication (see below)
TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS	No	loopback only	Comma-separated Host header allowlist (see Network exposure)
TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL	No	—	Base URL clients reach the server at (e.g. https://tapo.example.com). Enables short-lived snapshot links (see Snapshot links)

Authentication

When TAPO_MCP_API_KEY is set, the server requires all HTTP requests to include an Authorization: Bearer <key> header. Requests with a missing or invalid token receive a 401 Unauthorized response.

When the variable is unset (or empty/whitespace-only), the server runs without authentication.

Network exposure

The server enforces the MCP Streamable HTTP DNS-rebinding protection. By default only loopback Host headers (localhost, 127.0.0.1, ::1) are accepted, which prevents a malicious web page from reaching a locally running server via DNS rebinding. Requests to the MCP endpoint with any other Host receive a 403 Forbidden response. Snapshot links are not covered by this check (see Snapshot links).

To reach the server over the LAN or from another host, set TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS to the exact hostname(s) or host:port authorities clients connect to, for example TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS="tapo-mcp.lan:3000,192.168.1.50:3000". This replaces the loopback default, so include loopback entries as well if you still need them.

To avoid shipping unauthenticated smart-home control, the server refuses to start when it binds to a non-loopback address (for example 0.0.0.0:3000) without TAPO_MCP_API_KEY set. Set an API key, or bind to a loopback address.

Snapshot links

Some MCP clients don't pass image results on to the model, and others show the image to the model but give it nothing it can hand to the user. When TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL is set, take_snapshot also returns a url (and its expires_at) pointing at <TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL>/snapshots/<token>.jpg, so the agent can share the link or download the file.

• The link is served without the API key, so a browser can open it directly. The Host allowlist from TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS does not apply to it either. The random token in the path is the only credential: anyone holding the link can view that frame until it expires.
• Each link is valid for 5 minutes. Snapshots are kept in memory only and never written to disk. Expired snapshots are cleared out within a minute, and at most the 1024 most recent are kept.
• Behind an authenticating reverse proxy (Cloudflare Access and similar), links opened in a browser that is already signed in to the proxy work. Non-browser fetches (curl, an agent downloading the file) need the proxy's own credential or a policy exception for /snapshots/.

When TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL is unset, no link is returned and the /snapshots/ route is not served.

OpenTelemetry

Set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT to the full URL of an OTLP/HTTP traces endpoint, including the path (e.g. http://alloy.monitoring:4318/v1/traces), to export traces. OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES adds resource attributes. RUST_LOG (default tapo_mcp=info) also decides which spans are exported.

What gets traced:

• Tool calls. Each tools/call request gets one server span named tools/call <tool>, covering the whole call, following the OpenTelemetry MCP semantic conventions. It carries mcp.method.name, gen_ai.tool.name (only for tools the server provides), gen_ai.operation.name, jsonrpc.request.id, mcp.session.id and mcp.protocol.version, plus tapo.device.id and tapo.device.ip where the tool takes them. A failed call has error status and error.type (the JSON-RPC error code, or tool_error). Inside it, check_device covers the device verification, and get_capability, set_capability or capture_snapshot covers the device request. get_capability and set_capability carry tapo.capability, and control_device has one set_capability span for each capability it applies. A failed step has error status and error.type set to the kind of failure, such as DeviceNotFound or WrongDeviceType.
• Background jobs. refresh_devices for each device discovery, and prune_snapshots for each sweep of expired snapshot links.

Credentials, the API key and image data are never recorded. Tool arguments are not recorded either, except id and ip, and a failed call's error message, which can repeat the value that was rejected.

Incoming W3C trace context is honoured. When the request's params._meta has a traceparent (and optionally tracestate), as MCP clients that trace their calls send, the tool call span becomes its child and joins that trace. A traceparent header on the HTTP request that carries the call, for example from a tracing reverse proxy, is then recorded as a span link. Without _meta context, the HTTP header is used as the parent instead. Without either, the span starts a new trace.

Deployment

Docker

docker run --rm \
  --network host \
  -e TAPO_MCP_USERNAME="[email protected]" \
  -e TAPO_MCP_PASSWORD="<YOUR_TAPO_PASSWORD>" \
  -e TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_USERNAME="<YOUR_CAMERA_ACCOUNT_USERNAME>" \
  -e TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_PASSWORD="<YOUR_CAMERA_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD>" \
  -e TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TARGET="192.168.1.255" \
  -e TAPO_MCP_API_KEY="<YOUR_TAPO_MCP_API_KEY>" \
  ghcr.io/mihai-dinculescu/tapo-mcp:latest

Note: The image binds to 0.0.0.0:3000, so TAPO_MCP_API_KEY is required — the server refuses to start on a non-loopback address without it (see Network exposure). To reach the server by hostname or LAN IP rather than loopback, also set TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS. To get snapshot links, add -e TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL="https://tapo.example.com".

Note: --network host is required so the container can reach Tapo devices on your local network via UDP broadcast for discovery. On macOS and Windows, --network host is not supported — you can use -p 3000:3000 instead, but device discovery won't work as Docker Desktop runs containers inside a VM without LAN access.

Kubernetes

Create the Secret and ConfigMap first:

kubectl create secret generic tapo-mcp-secrets \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_USERNAME="[email protected]" \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_PASSWORD="<YOUR_TAPO_PASSWORD>" \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_USERNAME="<YOUR_CAMERA_ACCOUNT_USERNAME>" \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_PASSWORD="<YOUR_CAMERA_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD>" \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_API_KEY="<YOUR_TAPO_MCP_API_KEY>"

kubectl create configmap tapo-mcp-config \
  --from-literal=TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TARGET="192.168.1.255"

Then apply the Deployment:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: tapo-mcp
spec:
  replicas: 1
  strategy:
    type: Recreate
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: tapo-mcp
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: tapo-mcp
    spec:
      hostNetwork: true
      containers:
        - name: tapo-mcp
          image: ghcr.io/mihai-dinculescu/tapo-mcp:latest
          env:
            - name: TAPO_MCP_USERNAME
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-secrets
                  key: TAPO_MCP_USERNAME
            - name: TAPO_MCP_PASSWORD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-secrets
                  key: TAPO_MCP_PASSWORD
            - name: TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_USERNAME
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-secrets
                  key: TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_USERNAME
            - name: TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_PASSWORD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-secrets
                  key: TAPO_MCP_CAMERA_PASSWORD
            - name: TAPO_MCP_API_KEY
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-secrets
                  key: TAPO_MCP_API_KEY
            - name: TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TARGET
              valueFrom:
                configMapKeyRef:
                  name: tapo-mcp-config
                  key: TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TARGET

Note: hostNetwork: true is required for UDP broadcast discovery, similar to --network host in Docker. Because clients reach the server by node IP or hostname rather than loopback, set TAPO_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS accordingly (see Network exposure). To get snapshot links, add TAPO_MCP_PUBLIC_URL to the ConfigMap and the Deployment's env.

OpenClaw

The tapo skill for OpenClaw makes it easy to use a deployed tapo MCP server from OpenClaw agents.

Install it with:

npx clawhub install tapo

Contributing

Contributions are welcome and encouraged! See /tapo-mcp/CONTRIBUTING.md.

Footnotes

1. Set on each camera in the Tapo app under Camera Settings > Advanced Settings > Camera Account. Distinct from your TP-Link cloud account. ↩ ↩²

2. While a background discovery runs, tool calls that contact a device wait for it to finish, and the discovery waits for calls already in progress. A run takes about TAPO_MCP_DISCOVERY_TIMEOUT seconds plus a few more to log in to the devices, and longer if a device is slow to respond. A short interval means these pauses happen often: at 15 with the default timeout, tool calls can be held up for several seconds out of every 15. list_devices and the tapo://devices resource never wait. ↩ ↩²