Alpaca Official

Frequently asked questions

What does the Alpaca MCP server do?

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > A comprehensive Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Alpaca's Trading API. Enable natural language trading operations through AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code. Supports stocks, options, crypto, portfolio management, and real-time market data. > > Alpaca MCP Server v2 is here. This version is a complete rewrite built with FastMCP and OpenAPI. If you're upgrading from v1, please read the Upgrade Guide — tool names, parameters, and configuration have changed. Table of Contents Upgrading from V1 Prerequisites Getting Your API Keys Setup Configuration Features Example Prompts Available Tools Testing Project Structure Troubleshooting Disclosure --- Upgrading from V1 V2 is a complete rewrite built with FastMCP and OpenAPI. None of the V1 tools exist in V2 — tool names, parameters, and schemas have changed. You cannot use V2 as a drop-in replacement if your setup depends on specific V1 tool names or parameters. What changes Aspect V1 V2 ------------------ -------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool names Hand-crafted (e.g. get account info ) Spec-derived with overrides (e.g. get account info — names may overlap but schemas differ) Parameters Custom schemas Aligned with Alpaca API specs Configuration .env + init command Env vars in MCP client config only Tool filtering Not supported ALPACA TOOLSETS env var Whitelisting Not supported Use ALPACA TOOLSETS to restrict tools How to avoid V1-style usage in V2 MCP clients discover tools dynamically from the server. There is no config file where you "whitelist" tool names — the client gets whatever tools the server exposes. To avoid your client or AI assistant using V2 incorrectly: Do not reuse V1 config — Treat V2 as a new server. Update your MCP client config with the new command/args; remove any .env or init -based setup. Clear tool caches — Restart your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) after switching so it fetches the new tool list instead of using a stale one. Start a fresh chat/session — Existing conversations may have cached references to old tool names. Start a new chat so the LLM sees the current V2 tools and their schemas. Update custom instructions and rules — If you have Cursor rules, Claude instructions, or other prompts that mention specific V1 tool names (e.g. "use get account info "), update them to match V2 tool names or remove those references and let the LLM discover tools from context. Restrict tools with ALPACA TOOLSETS — If you previously limited which capabilities your assistant could use, V2 supports server-side filtering via the ALPACA TOOLSETS env var. See Configuration > Toolset Filtering for the list of toolsets. Summary Assume no backward compatibility with V1. Reconfigure your MCP client for V2, restart it, and use a fresh session. Check the Available Tools section for the current tool list. If you had custom V1 workflows If you documented allowed tools, wrote scripts that call tools by name, or built prompts around specific V1 tool/parameter shapes — treat them as obsolete. Recreate them using the Available Tools listed below and the current parameter schemas exposed by the server. Staying on V1 If you need to stay on V1, pin to the last V1 release (e.g. uvx alpaca-mcp-server==1.x.x serve ) in your MCP client config. V1 remains available on PyPI for existing setups. --- Prerequisites Python 3.10+ (installation guide) uv (installation guide) Alpaca Trading API keys (free paper trading account) MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) Getting Your API Keys Visit the Alpaca Dashboard Create a free paper trading account Generate API keys from the dashboard Setup Add the server to your MCP client config, then restart the client. No init command, no .env files — credentials are set in one place only . Claude Desktop Edit /Library/Application Support/Claude/claude desktop config.json (Mac) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude desktop config.json (Windows): Claude Mobile Claude Mobile requires a remote MCP server. This package does not configure remote MCP authentication, so do not expose it directly to the public internet with your Alpaca API keys. Use the local stdio setup from a supported desktop client. ChatGPT ChatGPT requires a remote MCP server. This package does not configure remote MCP authentication, so do not expose it directly to the public internet with your Alpaca API keys. Use the local stdio setup from a supported desktop client. Cursor Install from the Cursor Directory in a few clicks, or add to /.cursor/mcp.json : VS Code Create .vscode/mcp.json in your project root. See the official docs. PyCharm See the official guide. Go to File → Settings → Tools → Model Context Protocol (MCP) Add a new server: Type : stdio Command : uvx Arguments : alpaca-mcp-server Set environment variables: Claude Code Verify with /mcp in the Claude Code CLI. Antigravity CLI See the Antigravity MCP docs. Add to /.gemini/antigravity-cli/mcp config.json (global) or .agents/mcp config.json (workspace): Docker Add to your MCP client config: Configuration All configuration is through environment variables set in your MCP client config. No files are written to disk. Variable Required Default Description -------------------- -------- ------- ------------------------------------------ ALPACA API KEY Yes — Your Alpaca API key ALPACA SECRET KEY Yes — Your Alpaca secret key ALPACA PAPER TRADE No true Set to false for live trading ALPACA TOOLSETS No all Comma-separated list of toolsets to enable Switching to Live Trading Update the env block in your MCP client config and restart: Toolset Filtering By default, all tools are enabled. To limit the server to specific toolsets, set ALPACA TOOLSETS : Available toolsets: Toolset Description ------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- account Account info, config, portfolio history, activities trading Orders, positions, exercise options watchlists Watchlist CRUD operations assets Asset lookup, option contracts, calendar, clock stock-data Stock bars, quotes, trades, snapshots, screeners crypto-data Crypto bars, quotes, trades, snapshots, orderbooks options-data Option bars, quotes, trades, snapshots, chain, exchange codes corporate-actions Corporate action announcements news News articles for stocks and crypto fixed-income-data Fixed income (bond/treasury) quotes locates Short-sale locate requests and quotes ReadMe Docs MCP Docs are scoped to the Trading API, Market Data API, and Authentication API specs; Broker API endpoint docs are intentionally excluded from this server. If the ReadMe MCP lookup fails, tool responses include fallback links to Alpaca's public docs plus llms.txt and llms-full.txt . Features Market Data — Real-time quotes, trades, and price bars for stocks, crypto, and options. Historical data with flexible timeframes. Option Greeks and implied volatility. Account Management — View balances, buying power, account status, and portfolio history. Order Management — Place market, limit, stop, stop-limit, and trailing-stop orders for stocks, crypto, and options. Cancel orders individually or in bulk. Options Trading — Search contracts by expiration/strike/type. Place single-leg or multi-leg strategies. Get latest quotes, Greeks, and IV. Crypto Trading — Market, limit, and stop-limit orders with GTC/IOC. Quantity or notional-based. Position Management — View, close, or liquidate positions. Exercise option contracts. News — News articles filterable by ticker and date range. Market Status — Market open/close times, calendar, corporate actions. Watchlists — Create, update, and manage watchlists. Asset Search — Query details for stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with filtering. Example Prompts Basic Trading What's my current account balance and buying power on Alpaca? Show me my current positions in my Alpaca account. Buy 5 shares of AAPL at market price. Sell 5 shares of TSLA with a limit price of $300. Cancel all open stock orders. Cancel the order with ID abc123. Liquidate my entire position in GOOGL. Close 10% of my position in NVDA. Place a limit order to buy 100 shares of MSFT at $450. Place a market order to sell 25 shares of META. Crypto Trading Place a market order to buy 0.01 ETH/USD. Place a limit order to sell 0.01 BTC/USD at $110,000. Option Trading Show me available option contracts for AAPL expiring next month. Get the latest quote for the AAPL250613C00200000 option. Retrieve the option snapshot for the SPY250627P00400000 option. Liquidate my position in 2 contracts of QQQ calls expiring next week. Place a market order to buy 1 call option on AAPL expiring next Friday. What are the option Greeks for the TSLA250620P00500000 option? Find TSLA option contracts with strike prices within 5% of the current market price. Get SPY call options expiring the week of June 16th, 2025, within 10% of market price. Place a bull call spread using AAPL June 6th options: one with a 190.00 strike and the other with a 200.00 strike. Exercise my NVDA call option contract NVDA250919C001680. Market Information > To access the latest 15-minute data, you need to subscribe to the Algo Trader Plus Plan. > > 1. What are the market open and close times today? > 2. Show me the market calendar for next week. > 3. Show me recent cash dividends and stock splits for AAPL, MSFT, and GOOGL in the last 3 months. > 4. Get all corporate actions for SPY including dividends, splits, and any mergers in the past year. > 5. What are the upcoming corporate actions scheduled for SPY in the next 6 months? Historical & Real-time Data Show me AAPL's daily price history for the last 5 trading days. What was the closing price of TSLA yesterday? Get the latest bar for GOOGL. What was the latest trade price for NVDA? Show me the most recent quote for MSFT. Retrieve the last 100 trades for AMD. Show me 1-minute bars for AMZN from the last 2 hours. Get 5-minute intraday bars for TSLA from last Tuesday through last Friday. Get a comprehensive stock snapshot for AAPL showing latest quote, trade, minute bar, daily bar, and previous daily bar all in one view. Compare market snapshots for TSLA, NVDA, and MSFT to analyze their current bid/ask spreads, latest trade prices, and daily performance. Orders Show me all my open and filled orders from this week. What orders do I have for AAPL? List all limit orders I placed in the past 3 days. Filter all orders by status: filled. Get me the order history for yesterday. Watchlists > At this moment, you can only view and update trading watchlists created via Alpaca's Trading API through the API itself > > 1. Create a new watchlist called "Tech Stocks" with AAPL, MSFT, and NVDA. > 2. Update my "Tech Stocks" watchlist to include TSLA and AMZN. > 3. What stocks are in my "Dividend Picks" watchlist? > 4. Remove META from my "Growth Portfolio" watchlist. > 5. List all my existing watchlists. Asset Information Search for details about the asset 'AAPL'. Show me the top 5 tradable crypto assets by trading volume. Get all NASDAQ active US equity assets and filter the results to show only tradable securities Combined Scenarios Get today's market clock and show me my buying power before placing a limit buy order for TSLA at $340. Place a bull call spread with SPY July 3rd options: sell one 5% above and buy one 3% below the current SPY price. Available Tools Account & Portfolio get account info — Balance, margin, and account status get account config — Trading restrictions, margin settings, PDT checks update account config — Update account configuration settings get portfolio history — Equity and P/L over time get account activities — Fills, dividends, transfers get account activities by type — Activities filtered by type Trading (Orders) get orders — Retrieve orders with filters get order by id — Single order by ID get order by client id — Single order by client order ID replace order by id — Replace an existing open order cancel order by id — Cancel a specific order cancel all orders — Cancel all open orders place stock order — Stocks/ETFs (market, limit, stop, stop-limit, trailing-stop, brackets) place crypto order — Crypto (market, limit, stop-limit) place option order — Options (single-leg or multi-leg) Positions get all positions — All current positions get open position — Details for a specific position close position — Close a specific position close all positions — Liquidate entire portfolio exercise options position — Exercise a held option contract do not exercise options position — Do-not-exercise instruction Watchlists create watchlist — Create a new watchlist get watchlists — List all watchlists get watchlist by id — Get a specific watchlist update watchlist by id — Update a watchlist delete watchlist by id — Delete a watchlist add asset to watchlist by id — Add an asset to a watchlist remove asset from watchlist by id — Remove an asset from a watchlist Assets & Market Info get all assets — List assets with optional filtering get asset — Detailed info for a specific asset get option contracts — Option contracts for underlying symbol(s) get option contract — Single option contract by symbol or ID get calendar — Market calendar for a date range get clock — Current market status and next open/close get corporate action announcements — Corporate action announcements get corporate action announcement — Single announcement by ID Stock Data get stock bars — Historical OHLCV bars get stock quotes — Historical bid/ask quotes get stock trades — Historical trades get stock latest bar — Latest minute bar get stock latest quote — Latest quote get stock latest trade — Latest trade get stock snapshot — Comprehensive snapshot get most active stocks — Most active by volume/trade count get market movers — Top gainers and losers Crypto Data get crypto bars — Historical OHLCV bars get crypto quotes — Historical quotes get crypto trades — Histor

How do I install Alpaca?

Run the install command shown above, then paste the config for your client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Windsurf) into its MCP settings and restart the client.

Is Alpaca free to use?

The MCP server itself is free to install. The source is public on https://github.com/alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server. Any third-party service it calls may require its own API key and account.

Which clients support Alpaca?

Any MCP-compatible client can use it, including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and custom agents.