The Hume MCP Server gives you the the ability to use Octave Text to Speech from within an AI Chat, using an MCP Client Application such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf.

Octave TTS is the first text-to-speech system built on LLM intelligence. Octave is a speech-language model that understands what words mean in context, unlocking a new level of expressiveness and nuance. It performs the source text, it doesn't just pronounce it.

See this video for a demonstration of using the MCP Server to narrate a scene from an audiobook.

Quickstart

Click here to add to Cursor:

Install MCP Server

Copy the following into your client's MCP configuration (for example, inside the .mcpServers property of claude_desktop_config.json for Claude Desktop, or of the mcp.json for Cursor).

{
    ...
    "hume": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": [
            "@humeai/mcp-server"
        ],
        "env": {
            "HUME_API_KEY": "<your_hume_api_key>",
        }
    }
}

Prerequisites

• An account and API Key from Hume AI
• Node.js
• (optional) A command-line audio player
  • ffplay from FFMpeg is recommended, but the server will attempt to detect and use any of several common players.

Available Tools

The server exposes the following MCP tools:

• tts: Synthesize (and play) speech from text
• play_previous_audio: Replay previously generated audio
• list_voices: List available voices
• save_voice: Save a generated voice to your library
• delete_voice: Remove a voice from your library

Command Line Options

Options:
  --workdir, -w <path>       Set working directory for audio files (default: system temp)
  --(no-)embedded-audio-mode Enable/disable embedded audio mode (default: false)
  --help, -h                 Show this help message

Evaluation Framework

The project includes a comprehensive evaluation framework that measures how effectively AI agents can utilize the Hume TTS tools across various real-world scenarios.

Environment Variables

• HUME_API_KEY: Your Hume AI API key (required)
• WORKDIR: Working directory for audio files (default: system temp directory + "/hume-tts")
• EMBEDDED_AUDIO_MODE: Enable/disable embedded audio mode (default: false, set to 'true' to enable)
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: Required for running evaluations