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grafeo-mcp

MCP server that exposes GrafeoDB - an embedded graph database - to AI agents via the Model Context Protocol.

One install, zero infrastructure. The MCP server is the database.

Features

• 23 tools - graph CRUD, GQL queries, batch import, full-text search, vector search, MMR, hybrid retrieval, PageRank, Dijkstra, Louvain and more
• 3 resources - graph://schema, graph://stats, graph://nodes/{id}
• 4 workflow prompts - guide agents through exploration, knowledge extraction, graph analysis and similarity search
• GQL with Cypher auto-normalization - agents trained on Cypher syntax work out of the box
• Schema-first - agents discover the graph structure before querying
• Token-aware - all tools have limit params and truncate large results
• Embedded - no separate database server to manage

Quickstart

# Install
uv tool install grafeo-mcp

# Or with pip
pip install grafeo-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafeo": {
      "command": "grafeo-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GRAFEO_DB_PATH": "/path/to/your/graph.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to .mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafeo": {
      "command": "grafeo-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GRAFEO_DB_PATH": "./graph.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code / Copilot

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "grafeo": {
      "command": "grafeo-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GRAFEO_DB_PATH": "${workspaceFolder}/graph.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

HTTP transport

For remote or multi-client setups:

grafeo-mcp streamable-http

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
GRAFEO_DB_PATH	Path to the database file. Creates it if it doesn't exist	In-memory

Tools

Query

Tool	Description
execute_gql	Run GQL queries (Cypher syntax auto-normalized to GQL)

Graph CRUD & Traversal

Tool	Description
create_node	Create a node with labels and properties
create_edge	Create a directed edge between two nodes
get_node	Retrieve a node by ID
update_node	Update properties on an existing node
delete_node	Delete a node (with optional detach)
update_edge	Update properties on an existing edge
delete_edge	Delete an edge by ID
get_neighbors	Explore a node's neighborhood (1-hop)
search_nodes_by_label	Find nodes by label with pagination
graph_info	Schema, stats, labels, edge types, indexes

Batch Import

Tool	Description
batch_import	Bulk-create nodes and edges from JSON arrays

Full-Text Search

Tool	Description
create_text_index	Create a full-text search index on a property
search_text	Keyword search over indexed string properties

Vector Search

Tool	Description
vector_search	k-NN similarity search (HNSW)
mmr_search	Diversity-aware search (Maximal Marginal Relevance)
create_vector_index	Create HNSW index on a label + property
vector_graph_search	Hybrid: vector search + graph neighborhood expansion

Graph Algorithms

Tool	Description
pagerank	Rank nodes by importance
dijkstra	Shortest weighted path between two nodes
louvain	Community detection (Louvain modularity)
betweenness_centrality	Find bridge/bottleneck nodes
connected_components	Find disconnected subgraphs

Resources

URI	Description
graph://schema	Rich schema: labels, properties, edge types
graph://stats	Counts, memory, disk, config info
graph://nodes/{node_id}	Node details + connection summary

Prompts

Prompt	Description
explore_graph	Guided exploration of the graph structure
knowledge_extraction	Extract entities and relationships from text
graph_analysis	Structural analysis: communities, PageRank, hubs
similarity_search	Vector-powered semantic search with graph context

Which tool when?

I want to...	Use this tool	Not this
Add a single node	create_node	execute_gql, batch_import
Add a single edge	create_edge	execute_gql
Load many nodes and edges at once	batch_import	create_node in a loop
Look up a node by ID	get_node	execute_gql
Update a node's properties	update_node	execute_gql
Delete a node	delete_node	execute_gql
Update an edge's properties	update_edge	execute_gql
Delete an edge	delete_edge	execute_gql
Browse nodes of a type	search_nodes_by_label	execute_gql
Explore one hop from a node	get_neighbors	execute_gql
Run a complex or multi-hop query	execute_gql	multiple get_neighbors
Search by keyword in text	search_text	execute_gql
Find similar nodes by embedding	vector_search	execute_gql
Find similar nodes + graph context	vector_graph_search	vector_search + get_neighbors
Find the most important nodes	pagerank	execute_gql
Find shortest path between two nodes	dijkstra	execute_gql
Detect communities	louvain	execute_gql
Understand the graph before querying	graph_info	search_nodes_by_label

Batch reference syntax

The batch_import tool lets edges reference nodes created in the same batch using @N notation, where N is the zero-based index into the nodes array:

batch_import(
    nodes=[
        {"labels": ["Person"], "properties": {"name": "Alice"}},  # @0
        {"labels": ["Person"], "properties": {"name": "Bob"}},    # @1
    ],
    edges=[
        {"source_ref": "@0", "target_ref": "@1", "edge_type": "KNOWS"},
    ],
)

You can also mix batch references with existing node IDs: {"source_ref": "@0", "target_ref": 42, ...}.

Cypher normalization

The execute_gql tool automatically normalizes common Cypher syntax to GQL so agents trained on Cypher work out of the box. Currently the following transformations are applied:

Cypher keyword	GQL equivalent
CREATE	INSERT

Keywords that are shared between Cypher and GQL (such as MATCH, RETURN, WHERE, WITH, LIMIT, DETACH DELETE) pass through unchanged. Cypher-only keywords like MERGE or OPTIONAL MATCH are not supported and will produce a clear error message from the query engine.

Development

git clone https://github.com/GrafeoDB/grafeo-mcp
cd grafeo-mcp
uv sync
uv run pytest          # Run tests
uv run ruff check .    # Lint
uv run ruff format .   # Format
uv run ty check        # Type check

See Also

• grafeo-memory includes a built-in MCP server (grafeo-memory-mcp) that wraps the high-level memory API — extract, reconcile, search, summarize. If you need AI memory management rather than raw graph access, use uv add grafeo-memory[mcp].

License

Apache-2.0