About Scanpy-MCP
Scanpy-MCP is an MCP server for natural-language scRNA-Seq analysis with Scanpy. It serves researchers and agent developers with tools for data handling, preprocessing, analysis, and plotting.
Key features
- 01Read and write scRNA-Seq data
- 02Filter, normalize, and scale data
- 03Run PCA and neighbor analysis
- 04Cluster and test differential expression
- 05Create violin, heatmap, and dot plots
Use cases
- 01Analyze scRNA-Seq data with natural-language requests
- 02Add Scanpy functions to agent applications
MCP support
Exposes Scanpy-based scRNA-Seq input/output, preprocessing, analysis, and plotting capabilities to MCP clients. It can be run locally or remotely.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
We haven’t collected a package or remote endpoint for this server. Follow the instructions in the project README.
Tools
Local servers expose tools only once running on your machine, and the maintainer has not provided a tool list.
Details
From the project READMEScanpy-MCP
Natural language interface for scRNA-Seq analysis with Scanpy through MCP.
🪩 What can it do?
- IO module like read and write scRNA-Seq data
- Preprocessing module,like filtering, quality control, normalization, scaling, highly-variable genes, PCA, Neighbors,...
- Tool module, like clustering, differential expression etc.
- Plotting module, like violin, heatmap, dotplot
❓ Who is this for?
- Anyone who wants to do scRNA-Seq analysis natural language!
- Agent developers who want to call scanpy's functions for their applications
🌐 Where to use it?
You can use scanpy-mcp in most AI clients, plugins, or agent frameworks that support the MCP:
- AI clients, like Cherry Studio
- Plugins, like Cline
- Agent frameworks, like Agno
📚 Documentation
scmcphub's complete documentation is available at https://docs.scmcphub.org
🎬 Demo
A demo showing scRNA-Seq cell cluster analysis in a AI client Cherry Studio using natural language based on scanpy-mcp
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/93a8fcd8-aa38-4875-a147-a5eeff22a559
🏎️ Quickstart
Install
Install from PyPI
pip install scanpy-mcp
you can test it by running
scanpy-mcp run
run scnapy-mcp locally
Refer to the following configuration in your MCP client:
check path
$ which scanpy
/home/test/bin/scanpy-mcp
"mcpServers": {
"scanpy-mcp": {
"command": "//home/test/bin/scanpy-mcp",
"args": [
"run"
]
}
}
run scnapy-mcp remotely
Refer to the following configuration in your MCP client:
run it in your server
scanpy-mcp run --transport shttp --port 8000
Then configure your MCP client in local AI client, like this:
"mcpServers": {
"scanpy-mcp": {
"url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp"
}
}
🤝 Contributing
If you have any questions, welcome to submit an issue, or contact me([email protected]). Contributions to the code are also welcome!
Citing
If you use scanpy-mcp in for your research, please consider citing following work:
Wolf, F., Angerer, P. & Theis, F. SCANPY: large-scale single-cell gene expression data analysis. Genome Biol 19, 15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-017-1382-0
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.