arduino-mcp-server

Give your AI assistant full control over Arduino — compile, upload, monitor serial, and verify wiring safety, all through natural language.

Part of the HardwareMCP ecosystem — open-source MCP servers that bridge AI to physical hardware.

What this does

AI assistants can control Jira, GitHub, and databases. They can't talk to a microcontroller — until now.

arduino-mcp-server wraps arduino-cli into an MCP server so your AI can:

• Detect connected boards and ports automatically
• Compile and upload sketches without touching the terminal
• Monitor serial output with stateful sessions (open, read, expect, write, close)
• Run electrical safety checks before sending commands to hardware
• Manage dependencies — cores, libraries, and CLI installation

Quick Start

Install:

npm install -g arduino-mcp-server

Add to Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "arduino": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "arduino-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "ARDUINO_CLI_PATH": "arduino-cli",
        "ARDUINO_SKETCH_ROOT": "/path/to/your/sketches"
      }
    }
  }
}

Requires arduino-cli on your PATH, or let the server install it for you.

What you can say

Bootstrap from scratch:

"Check if Arduino CLI is installed and set everything up for an Arduino Uno."

Compile and upload:

"Compile my Blink sketch and upload it to the Uno on COM6."

Serial monitoring:

"Open serial on COM6 at 115200 and wait until the device prints READY."

Safety-first workflows:

"Run a safety preflight for an Arduino Uno with 5V on pin 13 at 25mA before I send commands."

Tools

Resources:

• arduino://boards/reference — structured board pin/capability reference

Prompts:

• arduino-cli-bootstrap-policy — policy for arduino-cli setup behavior
• arduino-setup-assistant — guided Arduino environment setup

Safety preflight guardrails

safety_preflight (and the safetyContext passed to upload_sketch, upload_and_wait_ready, and serial_write) now also covers battery and ESP32-family pin footguns, driven by small, extensible data tables rather than hardcoded to any one board:

Battery charge-rate (C-rate) check — pass a battery obje

... View full README on GitHub