FRED Economic MCP Server

A powerful Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing access to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) through Claude and other MCP-compatible clients.

🌟 Features

• 📊 Comprehensive Data Access: Access to 800,000+ economic time series
• 🔍 Smart Search: Find economic indicators by keyword or category
• 📈 Historical Analysis: Retrieve up to 100,000 observations per series
• ⚡ High Performance: Efficient async operations with proper error handling
• 🎯 Economic Dashboard: Pre-configured key economic indicators
• 🔄 Multi-Series Support: Compare multiple economic series simultaneously

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or higher
• FRED API key (free from FRED)

Installation

1. Download the server file:

   • Download fred_economic_server.py from this repository

2. Install dependencies:

pip install httpx python-mcp python-dotenv

3. Get your FRED API key:

   • Visit FRED API Key Registration
   • Sign up for a free account
   • Generate your API key

4. Set up environment:

export FRED_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred-economic": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["path/to/fred_economic_server.py"],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

🛠️ Available Tools

Tool	Description	Example Usage
get_fred_data	Get economic data by series ID	GDP, unemployment, inflation
get_fred_historical	Retrieve 4+ years of data	Long-term trend analysis
search_fred	Find series by keyword	Search "housing prices"
fred_dashboard	Key economic indicators	GDP, unemployment, rates
get_multiple_series	Compare multiple series	GDP vs unemployment

📊 Example Queries

Basic Data Retrieval

Ask Claude: "Get the latest GDP data"
Uses: get_fred_data("GDP")

Historical Analysis

Ask Claude: "Show me 10 years of unemployment data"
Uses: get_fred_historical("UNRATE", years=10)

Economic Research

Ask Claude: "Compare inflation and unemployment over the last 5 years"  
Uses: get_multiple_series(["CPIAUCSL", "UNRATE"])

📈 Common Economic Series

Indicator	Series ID	Description
GDP	GDP	Gross Domestic Product
Unemployment	UNRATE	Unemployment Rate
Inflation	CPIAUCSL	Consumer Price Index
Fed Funds Rate	FEDFUNDS	Federal Funds Rate
10-Year Treasury	DGS10	10-Year Treasury Rate
S&P 500	SP500	S&P 500 Index

📞 Support

• 📧 Issues: Use GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests
• 📖 FRED API Docs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/
• 🔧 MCP Protocol: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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