Deep Roon

The parts of Roon the official API doesn't reach, for Claude and any other MCP client: the reviews and biographies Roon shows, search across your library and Qobuz or TIDAL at once, their editorial shelves, TIDAL's playlists and mixes, Live Radio, album pages with credits, artist discographies, and your own play history with real "most played" counts.

Read this first. Deep Roon MCP is unofficial: it is not made, endorsed or supported by Roon Labs. It uses Roon's internal protocol — the one Roon's own apps use — through Arthur Soares' roon-api-reverse-engineering, which Roon Labs allows for tinkering with your own system. Brian Luczkiewicz (Roon Labs) on that protocol: it is "not hardened for 3rd party use", it can change with any Roon update, and misuse can cause memory or compute leaks in the Core. Read Arthur's thread on the Roon Community before you use it.

Use it entirely at your own risk. It comes without any warranty (see the licence). If your Core misbehaves, quit Deep Roon MCP and restart the Core. Report problems here, not to Roon's support. Keep port 9332 on your own network, never forward it to the internet. A Roon update can break a tool until Deep Roon MCP is updated. With the internal protocol switched off (see the settings below) only Roon's official extension API is used.

What stays at home. Deep Roon MCP runs on your computer and talks to your Roon Core over your own network. It has no server of its own and sends nothing anywhere else. What you ask goes to your MCP client's model like any other question.

Status

Version 0.5: fifty-nine tools (fifty-three with a read-only library). Qobuz, TIDAL or both — whatever is signed in on your Core.

Reading — changes nothing in Roon:

Tool	What it does
roon_search	Your library, Qobuz and TIDAL at once: albums (with format), artists, tracks — each says where it's from
roon_new	Qobuz's shelves (new, qobuzissimes, press awards, top, trending, ideal discography) or TIDAL's (new, recommended, top, rising, masters; albums or tracks) — by genre
roon_genres	Qobuz's genres and their ids, or TIDAL's genres and moods
roon_album	An album's page: tracks, release dates, label, barcode, credits
roon_track_files	Where your own files are: per track of an album, an artist or a list of tracks, the file path as the Core sees it (and duplicates) — Roon's export data
roon_review	The review Roon shows, in full, with its author
roon_bio	The biography Roon shows, in full, with related artists
roon_artist	An artist's discography at Qobuz or TIDAL, oldest first
roon_status	How Deep Roon MCP stands: Core, pairing, internal protocol, self-test, newer version
roon_zones	Roon's zones and groups
roon_now_playing	What plays in each zone, with the volume
roon_waveform	The waveform of what plays in a zone, as Roon draws it in its seek bar (local files, and streams once played)
roon_queue	A zone's queue, numbered (1 is what plays)
roon_cover	The cover of what plays, as an image
roon_history	Roon's play history, newest first
roon_top	Most played albums, artists or tracks over your whole history
roon_library	Your library with Roon's Focus: stars, genre, label, artist, composer, producer, years, hi-res, live … sorted any way
roon_focus	The Focus panel: what your library (or part of it) is made of, with counts
roon_tracks, roon_artists	Focus on tracks and artists (and composers)
roon_works, roon_work	Compositions, and one work with its description and your recordings of it
roon_daily_picks	Today's Daily Picks from Roon's Home, with why
roon_new_for_you	New releases Roon picked for you
roon_mixes	Today's Daily Mixes
roon_playlists, roon_playlist	Your playlists, and one playlist's tracks
roon_tidal_playlists	TIDAL's playlists: its editorial shelves, by genre or mood, and your own TIDAL mixes
roon_favorites	Albums with a heart in Roon, or your Qobuz or TIDAL favourites
roon_listen_later	Your Listen Later list
roon_versions	Other versions of an album: remasters, hi-res, in your library and streaming
roon_similar	More like this, for an album or an artist
roon_signal_path	Roon's signal path for what plays: is it bit-perfect, what happens on the way
roon_dsp	MUSE: the DSP set up for a zone
roon_radio	Live Radio: your own stations, the directory by category and genre

Playing — only on your request:

Tool	What it does
roon_play	An album on a zone: now, next or at the end of the queue, optionally shuffled
roon_play_tracks	Your own running order of tracks
roon_control	Pause, play, stop, next, previous
roon_seek	A position in the playing track
roon_volume	A zone's volume, mute
roon_settings	Shuffle, repeat, Roon Radio
roon_queue_jump, roon_queue_remove, roon_queue_move	Jump to an item of the queue, take items out, move one before or after another
roon_queue_clear	Clear what comes after the playing track (or everything)
roon_transfer	Move what plays, with its queue, to another zone
roon_group, roon_ungroup	Group zones, and undo it
roon_sleep	A sleep timer
roon_standby	Put a device in standby, or wake it
roon_play_playlist	A playlist on a zone (also a TIDAL one), optionally shuffled
roon_play_mix	One of today's Daily Mixes
roon_play_radio	A Live Radio station on a zone

Changing your library or sound — only on your request; each one reads the result back and says if Roon didn't follow.

A word of care. These six tools write into your Core's library and settings through Roon's internal protocol — the same wiring Roon's own apps use, but not an API Roon Labs supports for others. Deep Roon is careful with it (one change at a time, read back, nothing in bulk), but a Roon update can change that wiring under it. Keep a recent backup of your Roon database (Roon › Settings › Backups) before you let an assistant change things — and if you only want to ask and listen, switch on Read-only library below: then these six tools aren't there at all.

Tool	What it does
roon_favorite	A heart on an album or track, or off
roon_listen_later_set	On or off the Listen Later list
roon_library_add	A Qobuz or TIDAL album into your library
roon_playlist_create	A new playlist from tracks
roon_dsp_set	MUSE on or off, one part on or off, or a preset
roon_radio_favorite	A station into My Live Radio, or out of it

Install

Deep Roon MCP runs on a computer on the same network as your Roon Core (Mac, Windows or Linux), next to your MCP client.

Claude Desktop — one click

1. Download deep-roon-mcp-<version>.mcpb from the latest release.
2. Open it (double-click, or drag it onto Claude Desktop's Settings › Extensions). Claude Desktop shows the tools and the settings; click Install. It runs on Claude Desktop's own Node — nothing else to install.
3. In Roon: Settings › Extensions › Enable next to "Deep Roon MCP". Once.
4. Ask something: "What's new on Qobuz in jazz?", "Show me Roon's review of Kind of Blue", "Play Spirit of Eden in the living room".

The settings (Claude Desktop › Settings › Extensions › Deep Roon MCP):

Setting	What it does
Roon Core address	Empty: found on your network. Fill in the Core's address for another subnet or a private VPN (Tailscale)
Essentials only	Seventeen tools instead of fifty-nine, for small models
Use Roon's internal protocol	Off: only the official API — zones, playback, volume, grouping; no search, reviews, Focus or history
Read-only library	On: Deep Roon never changes your library — no playlists, hearts, Listen Later, library additions or DSP. Playing still works

Other clients

Needs Node.js 18 or newer. The package runs straight from npm with npx:

Claude Code

claude mcp add deep-roon -- npx -y deep-roon-mcp

ChatGPT desktop app and Codex — they share one configuration. In the ChatGPT desktop app: Settings › MCP servers › Add server, name deep-roon, type STDIO, command npx, arguments -y deep-roon-mcp; save, then Restart. Or from a terminal:

codex mcp add deep-roon -- npx -y deep-roon-mcp

or by hand in ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.deep-roon]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "deep-roon-mcp"]
# env = { ROON_HOST = "", DEEP_ROON_TOOLS = "", DEEP_ROON_INTERNAL = "", DEEP_ROON_READ_ONLY = "" }

ChatGPT on the web can't run a server on your computer — use the desktop app.

Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Cline, LM Studio, Claude Desktop by hand … — in the client's MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deep-roon": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "deep-roon-mcp"],
      "env": { "ROON_HOST": "", "DEEP_ROON_TOOLS": "", "DEEP_ROON_INTERNAL": "", "DEEP_ROON_READ_ONLY": "" }
    }
  }
}

The same settings as environment variables: ROON_HOST (the Core's address, empty = find it), DEEP_ROON_TOOLS=essentials, DEEP_ROON_INTERNAL=off, DEEP_ROON_READ_ONLY=library (nothing changes the library; playing works) or DEEP_ROON_READ_ONLY=all (Deep Roon only looks: no playing, queueing or zone changes either). Leave out what you don't need. VS Code calls the block "servers" instead of "mcpServers".

Then, once, in Roon: Settings › Extensions › Enable next to "Deep Roon MCP". Until then the tools say so.

Over HTTP

For a client that can't start a program on your computer, Deep Roon MCP can serve MCP over HTTP instead (Streamable HTTP, stateless, POST /mcp):

DEEP_ROON_HTTP=127.0.0.1:9301 npx -y deep-roon-mcp

DEEP_ROON_HTTP is [host:]port; the host defaults to 127.0.0.1. There is no authentication: keep it on your own computer, or put it behind something that has one (a reverse proxy with a key, a private tunnel). Never expose it to the internet as it is.

From source

git clone https://github.com/renebouwmeester/deep-roon-mcp
cd deep-roon-mcp && npm install && npm run build
# then use: node /path/to/deep-roon-mcp/dist/deep-roon-mcp.js

When something's wrong

"No Roon Core found" on a Mac: macOS asks once whether the app may use the local network — for Claude Desktop that's Claude and Claude Helper, for the ChatGPT desktop app ChatGPT. Allow it (System Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network), then try again.

Ask your client to run roon_status: the Core it found, whether it's enabled in Roon, whether the internal protocol works, and a self-test of a few reads with the tools each stands for. After a Roon update a tool may break until Deep Roon MCP is updated — the first answer says so when a newer version is out. Issues: github.com/renebouwmeester/deep-roon-mcp/issues (paste the status; it holds no secrets).

How it behaves

• Short connections, as Roon Labs asked: opened for a question, closed after two minutes of quiet, one at a time, questions one after another; a PING every 10 s while open, so the Core doesn't drop the session.
• Several clients at once (Claude Desktop and Claude Code, or ChatGPT next to them) work: Roon keeps one connection per extension, and the client that asks a question takes it over for that moment.
• Album, track and artist keys stay valid between calls.
• Track artists: a track's artist is its album's artist (on a compilation that is often "Various Artists"). Where the track's own main artist differs, it comes as track_artist — in search, roon_tracks, albums, playlists, the queue and what plays now. Roon keeps it in the track's credits.
• Covers: every image key comes with an image_url to load it from your Core. Roon has two kinds of image keys that aren't interchangeable. Deep Roon reads Roon's internal library, so most keys are internal ones (short, like doicaaaa): the Core serves them at http://<core>:9330/image/<key>.jpg, or scaled at /image/<key>.300.jpg (any width). The zones (roon_now_playing) come from Roon's official extension API, whose keys (long hex) are served at /api/image/<key>?scale=fit&width=600&height=600. The URL uses the Core's address as Deep Roon sees it — when Deep Roon runs on the Core's own machine that is 127.0.0.1; from another device, put the Core's IP there.
• The log goes to stderr (your MCP client keeps it).
• At the start it asks GitHub once whether a newer release is out (DEEP_ROON_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 turns that off). Nothing else leaves your network except what your client sends to its model.
• The pairing with Roon is kept in your configuration folder (Mac ~/Library/Application Support/deep-roon-mcp, Windows %APPDATA%\deep-roon-mcp, Linux ~/.config/deep-roon-mcp).

Credits

Arthur Soares for the protocol work (MIT, in src/intern). Roon Labs for allowing it.

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE and NOTICE. Roon is a trademark of Roon Labs LLC; Qobuz of Xandrie SA; TIDAL of TIDAL Music AS.