Venice Server

Model Context Protocol server for the Venice API - uncensored, private AI for any MCP host (Claude Desktop, Cursor, ChatGPT, LM Studio, Continue, LibreChat, Open WebUI, AnythingLLM, Jan, Le Chat).

npm License: MIT

Plug Venice's chat, image, video, audio, music, and character models into any agent in 30 seconds. 31 tools across all modalities, one config block.

Quick start

1. Get a key from venice.ai

See the API key guide for step-by-step instructions.

2. Add this to your MCP host config

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows), Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json), LM Studio, etc:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "venice": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@veniceai/[email protected]"],
      "env": { "VENICE_API_KEY": "<your-venice-api-key>" }
    }
  }
}

3. Restart your MCP host

That's it. Type a prompt — your agent now has chat, image, video, music, TTS, ASR, and 25 more Venice tools.

What you get

31 tools spanning every Venice modality, 3 resources (venice://models, venice://styles, venice://voices) and 3 prompt templates (uncensored research, NSFW creative writing, image style explorer).

💬 Chat & embeddings

Tool	Description
venice_chat	OpenAI-compatible chat completion against Venice's uncensored LLM catalog (Claude, GPT-5, Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi, Venice Uncensored, etc.).
venice_responses	OpenAI-compatible Responses API. Single-turn or multi-turn with tool support.
venice_embeddings	Compute embeddings for text input (OpenAI-compatible).
venice_chat_with_character	Chat with a Venice character by slug.

🎨 Image

Tool	Description
venice_image_generate	Generate an image. Supports Flux 2 Pro/Max, Lustify SDXL, Anime (WAI), Qwen Image, GPT Image, Nano Banana Pro and others.
venice_image_edit	Edit an image with a prompt. Returns base64 PNG.
venice_image_multi_edit	Edit multiple images together with a single prompt (multi-image composition / outpainting).
venice_image_upscale	Upscale an image (1–4× scale). Returns base64 PNG.
venice_image_remove_bg	Remove image background; returns a transparent PNG.
venice_image_styles	List image style presets available for venice_image_generate.

🎬 Video

Tool	Description
venice_video_generate	Queue a video generation. Supports Sora 2, Veo 3.1, Kling, Wan, LTX 2, Seedance (incl. r2v video-to-video), Runway Gen-4, and others. Accepts image, video, audio, and reference image inputs depending on model.
venice_video_status	Check status of a queued video job. Returns PROCESSING or COMPLETED.
venice_video_complete	Mark a completed video as downloaded; deletes server-side media.
venice_video_transcriptions	Transcribe a YouTube video URL.
venice_video_quote	Get a price quote for a video generation BEFORE queuing.

🔊 Audio (TTS / ASR)

Tool	Description
venice_tts	Convert text to speech. Supports cloned voices + emotion tags ([whispers], [sarcastically], etc.).
venice_asr	Transcribe audio from a URL.
venice_voice_clone	List built-in voices or clone a new voice from a sample audio URL.
venice_audio_quote	Get a price quote for music generation BEFORE queuing.

🎵 Music

Tool	Description
venice_music_generate	Queue music generation. Models: ace-step-15, elevenlabs-music, minimax-music-v2/v25/v26, stable-audio-25, mmaudio-v2, elevenlabs-sound-effects-v2.
venice_music_status	Check status of a queued music job.
venice_music_complete	Mark a completed music job as downloaded.

🌐 Web augment

Tool	Description
venice_web_search	Search the web (Firecrawl-backed). Returns ranked results with snippets.
venice_web_scrape	Scrape one URL into markdown text.
venice_text_parser	Extract text from a document URL (PDF, DOCX, EPUB, PPTX, XLSX, …).

📚 Catalog

Tool	Description
venice_list_models	List the live model catalog with capabilities and prices.
venice_list_characters	List public Venice characters.

⛓️ Crypto

Tool	Description
venice_crypto_rpc	Proxy a JSON-RPC call to a supported blockchain network (eth_call, eth_blockNumber, …). Supports Base, Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism.

💳 x402 wallet helpers

Optional — only needed if you authenticate with a wallet via x402 instead of an API key. See x402 — pay with a wallet.

Tool	Description
venice_x402_balance	Check the prepaid x402 credit balance for a wallet address.
venice_x402_top_up_info	Fetch top-up requirements (network, USDC token address, receiver wallet, minimum amount).
venice_x402_transactions	List recent x402 top-up + debit transactions for a wallet.

Configuration

Env var	Default	Notes
VENICE_API_KEY	(none)	Your Venice API key. The simplest setup.
VENICE_DEFAULT_CHAT_MODEL	venice-uncensored
VENICE_DEFAULT_IMAGE_MODEL	flux-2-pro
VENICE_DEFAULT_TTS_MODEL	tts-kokoro
VENICE_DEFAULT_ASR_MODEL	openai/whisper-large-v3
VENICE_DISABLE_NSFW	0	Set to 1 to remove NSFW capability notes from tool descriptions.
VENICE_HTTP_TIMEOUT_MS	60000
VENICE_SIWX_TOKEN	(none)	x402 wallet-mode auth token — see x402 — pay with a wallet.
PORT	3333	HTTP-mode listener.
VENICE_MCP_HOST	127.0.0.1	HTTP-mode bind address. Set to 0.0.0.0 for LAN/container exposure.
VENICE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN	(none)	Bearer token required by /mcp whenever HTTP mode binds outside loopback. Use a long random value.
VENICE_MCP_ALLOW_UNAUTHENTICATED_HTTP	0	Emergency escape hatch for unauthenticated exposed HTTP mode. Use only behind a trusted authenticated proxy.
VENICE_MCP_MAX_SESSIONS	100	Maximum active Streamable HTTP sessions.
VENICE_MCP_SESSION_TTL_MS	1800000	Idle Streamable HTTP session lifetime before cleanup.

Self-hosting (Streamable HTTP)

/mcp is a credential-backed tool execution endpoint: callers can spend the configured Venice API key or x402 balance. When HTTP mode binds outside loopback, startup fails unless VENICE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN is set, or VENICE_MCP_ALLOW_UNAUTHENTICATED_HTTP=1 is explicitly set behind a trusted authenticated proxy.

docker run -p 3333:3333 \
  -e VENICE_API_KEY=<your-venice-api-key> \
  -e VENICE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=<choose-a-long-random-token> \
  ghcr.io/veniceai/venice-mcp-server:latest
# server at http://localhost:3333/mcp

Clients should send Authorization: Bearer <choose-a-long-random-token> with HTTP MCP requests. HTTP clients should create new sessions without an mcp-session-id header and then reuse the server-issued session ID; unknown or malformed caller-provided session IDs are rejected. For reproducible production installs, pin the npm package version as shown in the examples instead of using an unversioned latest install path.

Or run from source — see Development below.

---

x402 — pay with a wallet, no account required

Skip this section if you're using VENICE_API_KEY. Everything below is optional and only matters if you specifically want to pay with a crypto wallet instead of a Venice account.

Venice supports authenticating with a SIWE-signed wallet token (a.k.a. SIWX) backed by prepaid USDC credit on Base mainnet, in addition to the normal API key flow. This lets you use Venice with no email, phone, or KYC — your wallet is the only identity.

Two-line config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "venice": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@veniceai/[email protected]"],
      "env": { "VENICE_SIWX_TOKEN": "<base64 SIWE payload>" }
    }
  }
}

The MCP server forwards VENICE_SIWX_TOKEN as the X-Sign-In-With-X header on every Venice API call.

How it works

ONE-TIME SETUP (per wallet)
  Sign a SIWE message → produces a SIWX token (base64 JSON)
  Set VENICE_SIWX_TOKEN in this MCP server's env

TOP UP (when balance is low)
  POST /api/v1/x402/top-up  (no payment header)  →  402 + payment requirements
  Sign a USDC EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization in your wallet
  POST /api/v1/x402/top-up with X-402-Payment: <signed>  →  Venice settles via
  Coinbase CDP facilitator and credits your prepaid balance

EVERY INFERENCE CALL
  MCP server sends X-Sign-In-With-X: <SIWX token>
  Venice → wallet → credit account → debits and runs inference

This MCP server never sees your private key. SIWE signing and USDC authorization happen in your wallet (MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, viem script, etc.) — the server is purely a header forwarder.

The helper tools venice_x402_balance, venice_x402_top_up_info, and venice_x402_transactions make balance + top-up flow inspectable from inside the agent.

Why prepaid instead of per-call?

• ⚡ Latency — once topped up, calls are sub-100ms (no on-chain settlement per call)
• 🧮 Throughput — Coinbase CDP facilitator settles top-ups in batches
• 🔒 Privacy — wallet ↔ credit account is the only identity link; no email/phone/KYC
• 🪙 DIEM shortcut — wallets linked to a Venice user with DIEM staked consume from staking balance, no USDC needed
• 💸 Min top-up $5 (anti-dust). Minimum balance to inference is $0.10.

Per-call HTTP 402 — not supported

Venice rejects X-402-Payment on inference routes. The header is only accepted on /api/v1/x402/top-up. This is by design — Venice settles top-ups in batches via the Coinbase CDP facilitator, then debits a fast off-chain credit account on inference. If you need per-call settlement semantics, you'll need a separate proxy that pays the credit account on demand.

Auth-mode coverage notes

Some Venice endpoints don't accept both auth modes:

Tool	API key	x402	Notes
venice_list_characters	✓	✗	Characters endpoint is API-key only
venice_x402_balance	✗	✓	Wallet-bound by design
venice_x402_transactions	✗	✓	Wallet-bound by design
venice_x402_top_up_info	✓	✓	Auth-free; same 402 response in both modes

Hybrid

Set both VENICE_API_KEY AND VENICE_SIWX_TOKEN — API key wins. SIWX is only used when the key is absent.

---

Architecture

┌──────────────────────┐        stdio  OR        ┌────────────────────────┐
│  MCP host            │      Streamable HTTP    │  @veniceai/mcp-server  │
│  (Claude / Cursor /  ├────────────────────────▶│  - 31 tools            │
│   ChatGPT / etc.)    │                         │  - 3 resources         │
└──────────────────────┘                         │  - 3 prompts           │
                                                 │  - header forwarder    │
                                                 └────────────┬───────────┘
                                                              │ HTTPS
                                                              │   Authorization: Bearer ***
                                                              │   OR
                                                              │   X-Sign-In-With-X: <SIWX>
                                                              ▼
                                                 ┌────────────────────────┐
                                                 │  Venice API            │
                                                 │  api.venice.ai         │
                                                 └────────────────────────┘

Tool reference (endpoints + auth modes)

Click to expand — full mapping of tool → Venice endpoint → auth mode

Inference (API key OR x402 wallet)

Tool	Endpoint
venice_chat	POST /v1/chat/completions
venice_responses	POST /v1/responses
venice_embeddings	POST /v1/embeddings
venice_image_generate	POST /v1/image/generate
venice_image_edit	POST /v1/image/edit
venice_image_multi_edit	POST /v1/image/multi-edit
venice_image_upscale	POST /v1/image/upscale
venice_image_remove_bg	POST /v1/image/background-remove
venice_video_generate	POST /v1/video/queue
venice_video_status	POST /v1/video/retrieve
venice_video_complete	POST /v1/video/complete
venice_video_transcriptions	POST /v1/video/transcriptions
venice_tts	POST /v1/audio/speech
venice_asr	POST /v1/audio/transcriptions
venice_voice_clone	POST /v1/audio/voices
venice_music_generate	POST /v1/audio/queue
venice_music_status	POST /v1/audio/retrieve
venice_music_complete	POST /v1/audio/complete
venice_web_search	POST /v1/augment/search
venice_web_scrape	POST /v1/augment/scrape
venice_text_parser	POST /v1/augment/text-parser
venice_crypto_rpc	POST /v1/crypto/rpc/:network

Catalog & quotes (auth-free)

Tool	Endpoint
venice_list_models	GET /v1/models
venice_image_styles	GET /v1/image/styles
venice_audio_quote	POST /v1/audio/quote
venice_video_quote	POST /v1/video/quote

Characters (API key only)

Tool	Endpoint
venice_list_characters	GET /v1/characters
venice_chat_with_character	POST /v1/chat/completions (with character_slug)

x402 wallet helpers (SIWX only)

Tool	Endpoint
venice_x402_balance	GET /v1/x402/balance/:wallet
venice_x402_top_up_info	POST /v1/x402/top-up (no payment)
venice_x402_transactions	GET /v1/x402/transactions/:wallet

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test                  # full suite (71 tests across 10 suites, ~3s)
npm run test:unit         # unit tests only
npm run test:integration  # spawns dist/cli.js + a mock Venice over real stdio JSON-RPC
npm start                 # stdio mode
npm run start:http        # http mode on :3333

Test layout

test/
├── config.test.ts             # env parsing, defaults, header precedence
├── format.test.ts             # 402 formatter cases
├── venice-client.test.ts      # HTTP client + real mock Venice
├── tools.test.ts              # 31 tool registry + endpoint+method+body mappings
├── integration.test.ts        # end-to-end JSON-RPC over stdio against a mock Venice
└── helpers/
    ├── stub-client.ts         # in-process VeniceClient stub
    └── mock-venice-server.ts  # real http.Server fake of Venice for integration tests

The integration suite spawns the compiled CLI and speaks JSON-RPC on its stdin/stdout, exercising initialize → tools/list → tools/call → resources/list → resources/read against a real HTTP mock Venice in three auth scenarios (API key only, SIWX only, no auth).

End-to-end with live Venice + Base mainnet

test/e2e/ is a phased harness against the real Venice API and real Base mainnet — not a mock. It generates a throwaway wallet, signs SIWE + EIP-3009 payloads with viem, and drives the MCP server via JSON-RPC over stdio. The wallet is persisted at .e2e-wallet.json (chmod 600, gitignored — never commit).

Phase	npm script	Cost	What it tests
create	test:e2e:create	free	Generate / reload wallet, print address + balance
empty	test:e2e:empty	free	SIWX → MCP venice_chat → expect 402 with helpful diagnostics
topup	test:e2e:topup	$5 USDC + gas	Sign EIP-3009 → POST /api/v1/x402/top-up → settle on-chain via CDP facilitator
funded	test:e2e:funded	~$0.001 / call	SIWX → MCP venice_chat → real LLM completion charged to prepaid balance
balance	test:e2e:balance	free	Read on-chain USDC + Venice prepaid via venice_x402_balance tool
safe	test:e2e:safe	free	create + empty + balance (no money spent)

# Comprehensive — all 31 tools × both auth modes, side-by-side report
VENICE_API_KEY=<your-venice-api-key> npm run test:e2e:all-tools

FAQ

Do I have to deal with crypto? No. The simple path is VENICE_API_KEY + a normal Venice account. x402 is an option for users who want a wallet-only flow.

Where does the wallet's private key live? Not in this server. You sign the SIWE message + USDC top-up authorizations in your own wallet (MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, viem-script, etc.). The server only sees the resulting SIWX token and never sees a private key.

Minimum top-up? $5 USD (anti-dust). Minimum balance to call inference is $0.10. Default suggested top-up is $10.

Privacy guarantees? No email, phone, or KYC if you go the SIWX path. The wallet ↔ credit account mapping is the only identity link. The MCP server itself does not log prompts or responses. Combine with X-Venice-TEE-Required: 1 (passed through by your client) to also run inference inside Intel TDX + NVIDIA NRAS confidential compute.

DIEM staking? If your wallet is linked to a Venice user with DIEM staked, calls consume from the staking balance instead of USDC credits — no top-up needed.

Getting 402 errors even though I have an API key? The most common cause is that VENICE_API_KEY isn't being forwarded to the MCP server process. Most MCP hosts (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, etc.) only pass environment variables that are explicitly listed in the "env" block of your MCP config — system-level env vars are not automatically inherited. Make sure your config looks like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "venice": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@veniceai/[email protected]"],
      "env": { "VENICE_API_KEY": "<your-venice-api-key>" }
    }
  }
}

If the key is missing or blank, the server falls back to x402 mode and returns a 402 payment challenge.

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Disclaimer

Community-maintained. Provided as-is, with no warranty or SLA from Venice AI. Use at your own risk.

License

MIT