About upnext
upnext is an MCP server for managing a machine's audio through a single queue spanning Spotify, browser playback, local files, and currently playing media. Queue changes use entry IDs so agents can address items reliably.
Key features
- 01Inspect playback and queue state
- 02Enqueue links, files, Spotify URIs, or descriptions
- 03Control playback and seek where supported
- 04Move and remove queue entries by ID
- 05Search available sources
- 06Adopt current playback into the queue
Use cases
- 01Queue a track after the current browser audio
- 02Add a local music file to playback
- 03Reorder or remove a specific queue item
- 04Check what is playing across machine sources
MCP support
The MCP server exposes media inspection, queue, playback, search, and adoption tools to MCP clients. It can also be embedded with an existing runtime through its server transport.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
Tools
12Saved tool list · updated 2w ago
This tool takes no parameters.
Details
From the project READMEupnext-mcp
An MCP server for your machine's audio. One queue across Spotify, the browser, local files, and whatever is already playing.
{
"mcpServers": {
"upnext": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "upnext-mcp", "--library", "/Users/me/Music"]
}
}
}
Drop that in Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or anything else that speaks MCP.
What it lets an agent do
you: what am I listening to?
→ ❚❚ Acquired — Jensen Huang (Google Chrome)
you: let that finish, then play Bad Habit
→ adopted "Acquired — Jensen Huang" as q_0001
up next:
q_0001 Acquired — Jensen Huang
q_0002 Bad Habit — Steve Lacy
The first line reads a browser tab — no extension. The second puts it in the queue as a real entry, so the agent adds to what someone is doing rather than cutting across it.
Tools
| tool | |
|---|---|
media_now | what's playing, in the queue and elsewhere on the machine |
media_queue | the queue, with the id of each entry |
media_enqueue | add a link, file path, Spotify URI, or a plain description |
media_play · media_pause · media_next | transport |
media_seek | jump to a position — says so plainly if the source can't |
media_move · media_remove | reorder and drop, by id |
media_search | search the sources that can search |
media_adopt_current | put what's already playing into the queue |
media_setup | what's wired here, and what it can do |
Every mutation is addressed by id, and every response includes the queue with ids in it. That's deliberate: a model working from positions races anything else touching the queue, and by the time its call lands, position 2 is a different song.
It tells the model the truth
Two places where this behaves differently from most tool servers, both for the same reason — a model that gets a silent no-op will confidently tell the user it worked.
media_seek on a source that can't seek returns a sentence, not an error:
the current source (spotify-desktop) cannot seek. Nothing changed.
media_search with nothing wired to search explains itself:
nothing found for "bad habit". playing through: spotify-desktop, nowplaying, local titles will NOT resolve: nothing wired here can search…
Titles need a searcher
A link says exactly what to play. A description has to be looked up, and not
every backend can. The Spotify desktop app plays a URI you hand it but cannot
search a catalogue — so on a plain Mac setup, media_enqueue with "bad habit"
has nothing to resolve against.
Give it one of these:
// index a music folder
"args": ["-y", "upnext-mcp", "--library", "/Users/me/Music"]
// or a Spotify Web token, via the environment
"env": { "SPOTIFY_TOKEN": "..." }
media_setup will tell you which you have.
Embedding it instead
If your product already has a queue, expose that one rather than starting a second that competes with it:
import { createServer } from 'upnext-mcp';
import { serveStdio } from '@modelcontextprotocol/server/stdio';
serveStdio(() => createServer(myExistingRuntime));
This package is a transport, and nothing more — ordering, capability
negotiation, resolution and reconciliation all happen in
upnext-core. It lives apart
because a transport is an opinion, and nobody importing the runtime should
inherit this one.
Full docs: https://github.com/tothienbao6a0/upnext · Apache-2.0
Comments
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