mqtt5-mcp-server

MQTT MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for MQTT — the standard IoT publish/subscribe messaging protocol. Works against any MQTT broker (Eclipse Mosquitto, EMQX, HiveMQ, AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub's MQTT endpoint, etc): only the standard MQTT 5.0 wire protocol is used, no broker-specific admin APIs.

Built with FastMCP and paho-mqtt.

Tools

Tool	Description
get_connection_status()	Report this connector's broker connection state.
publish_message(topic, payload, qos, retain, ...)	Publish a message. Supports MQTT5 properties (content type, message expiry, response topic, correlation data, user properties) and optionally blocks until the broker acknowledges delivery (QoS 1/2).
start_subscription(topic_filter, qos, ...)	Start receiving messages matching a topic filter (supports +/# wildcards). Returns a session_id.
get_messages(session_id, max_messages, timeout_seconds)	Drain buffered messages from a subscription session; can wait briefly for one to arrive.
stop_subscription(session_id)	Stop a session and unsubscribe (if no other session needs the same filter).
list_subscriptions()	List all active subscription sessions.
discover_topics(topic_filter, duration_seconds, max_topics)	Approximate a "list topics" operation via retained messages — MQTT has no native topic-listing operation.

Why subscriptions are session-based

MQTT is a continuous publish/subscribe stream, not a request/response API. A single MCP tool call can't "wait forever" for messages, so subscribing works in two steps: start_subscription registers interest and buffers messages in the background (one shared broker connection, dispatched in-process by topic filter), then get_messages drains that buffer on however many tool calls you want, optionally waiting a bounded amount of time for new data. Call stop_subscription when done.

Configuration

Env var	Required	Description
MQTT_HOST	Yes	Broker hostname or IP.
MQTT_PORT	No	Default 1883 (or 8883 for TLS — set explicitly).
MQTT_USERNAME / MQTT_PASSWORD	No	Broker credentials.
MQTT_CLIENT_ID	No	Defaults to a broker-assigned ID.
MQTT_KEEPALIVE	No	Seconds, default 60.
MQTT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT	No	Seconds to wait for the initial connect, default 10.
MQTT_TRANSPORT	No	tcp (default) or websockets.
MQTT_WS_PATH	No	Path for the websocket transport, default /mqtt.
MQTT_USE_TLS	No	true/false, default false.
MQTT_TLS_CA_CERTS	No	Path to a CA bundle. Omit to use the system trust store.
MQTT_TLS_CLIENT_CERT / MQTT_TLS_CLIENT_KEY	No	For mutual TLS.
MQTT_TLS_INSECURE	No	Skip hostname verification — for self-signed test certs only.
MQTT_WILL_TOPIC / MQTT_WILL_PAYLOAD / MQTT_WILL_QOS / MQTT_WILL_RETAIN	No	Last Will and Testament, set once at connect time.

Running locally

uv sync
export MQTT_HOST=localhost
export MQTT_PORT=1883
export MQTT_USERNAME=mqtt
export MQTT_PASSWORD=mqtt
uv run mqttmcpserver.py

See mcp.json for ready-to-use client configs (stdio and Docker).

Testing against a real broker

This repo's design principles call for testing against a real instance rather than mocks. docker-compose.yml spins up Eclipse Mosquitto (2.x, MQTT5-capable) with password auth, plus a TLS listener with self-signed certs for testing the TLS/mTLS code paths.

docker compose up -d       # start Mosquitto on localhost:1883 (plain, user: mqtt / pass: mqtt) and :8883 (TLS)
uv run pytest -v           # tests/conftest.py also starts/stops the stack automatically
docker compose down        # stop it manually if you started it yourself

License notes

docker-compose.yml and the files under docker/ configure the open-source Eclipse Mosquitto broker (EPL-2.0) for local testing only — they are not part of the MCP server itself.