Jisho

A lightweight Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Jisho.org, the popular Japanese-English dictionary.

Look up Japanese words, readings, JLPT levels, and definitions directly inside MCP-compatible AI clients — or let your agent search for you.

Features

• Word search with all Jisho filters (#jlpt-n5, #verb, wildcards, etc.)
• Exact lookup by word slug (e.g. 食べる)
• Compact responses (Wikipedia/dbpedia padding stripped, linguistic fields like see_also, antonyms, source preserved)
• Read-only resources: jisho://word/{keyword} and jisho://search/{keyword}

Quick start

No installation required. You only need uv and Python >= 3.10.

Claude Code

claude mcp add jisho -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/giuliocapecchi/jisho-mcp jisho-mcp

Other MCP clients (Claude Desktop, Codex, OpenCode, …)

Add the following block to your client's MCP config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jisho": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/giuliocapecchi/jisho-mcp", "jisho-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Common config locations:

Client	Config file
Claude Desktop	claude_desktop_config.json
Codex (OpenAI)	~/.codex/config.json
OpenCode	opencode.json

Permanent install

If you prefer a system-wide command:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/giuliocapecchi/jisho-mcp

Then run directly:

jisho-mcp

Or add to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jisho": {
      "command": "jisho-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Development

git clone https://github.com/giuliocapecchi/jisho-mcp.git
cd jisho-mcp
uv sync
uv run jisho-mcp

Tools

Tool	Description
search_words(keyword, page=1)	Search dictionary entries.
get_word(slug)	Fetch the entry with the exact slug, or None if no exact match.

Example

get_word("水") returns:

{
  "slug": "水",
  "is_common": true,
  "jlpt": ["jlpt-n5"],
  "japanese": [{"word": "水", "reading": "みず"}],
  "senses": [
    {
      "english_definitions": ["water (esp. cool or cold)"],
      "parts_of_speech": ["Noun"],
      "see_also": ["湯 ゆ"]
    },
    {
      "english_definitions": ["fluid (esp. in an animal tissue)", "liquid"],
      "parts_of_speech": ["Noun"]
    }
  ]
}

License

MIT