About apple-fm-mcp
apple-fm-mcp exposes Apple's on-device Foundation Models for text generation and text-processing tasks. It is for Claude Code and Claude Desktop users who need local inference on supported Apple Silicon Macs.
Key features
- 01Generate free-form text
- 02Summarize text into bullets
- 03Classify text into categories
- 04Extract structured data
- 05Check model availability
Use cases
- 01Classify text locally
- 02Summarize short text
- 03Extract simple structured data
- 04Process privacy-sensitive text on-device
MCP support
The MCP server exposes five tools for Apple's on-device model, including generation, summarization, classification, extraction, and status checks.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
Tools
Local servers expose tools only once running on your machine, and the maintainer has not provided a tool list.
Details
From the project READMEApple Foundation Models MCP Server
Expose Apple's on-device 3B parameter LLM to Claude Code and Claude Desktop via MCP. Zero API cost, fully private, runs on Neural Engine.
Requirements
- macOS 26+ (Tahoe or later)
- Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4)
- Apple Intelligence enabled in System Settings
- Python 3.10+
Install
pip install apple-fm-mcp
Configure
Add to your Claude Code config (~/.claude/mcp.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"apple-fm": {
"command": "apple-fm-mcp"
}
}
}
Or Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"apple-fm": {
"command": "apple-fm-mcp"
}
}
}
Tools
| Tool | Description | Latency |
|---|---|---|
fm_generate | Free-form text generation | ~1s |
fm_summarize | Summarize text into bullet points | ~4s |
fm_classify | Classify text into categories | ~2s |
fm_extract | Extract structured data from text | ~3s |
fm_status | Check model availability | instant |
Why Use This?
- Free: No API keys, no tokens, no cloud costs
- Private: All inference on-device, no data leaves your Mac
- Fast: Neural Engine optimized, ~1s for generation
- Complementary: Use alongside Claude for tasks where on-device speed matters
When to Use Apple FM vs Claude
| Task | Use Apple FM | Use Claude |
|---|---|---|
| Quick classification | Yes | Overkill |
| Text summarization | Yes (short text) | Yes (long documents) |
| Code generation | No | Yes |
| Complex reasoning | No | Yes |
| Data extraction | Yes (simple) | Yes (complex) |
| Privacy-critical | Yes | Depends |
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License
MIT
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.