Chroma MCP Server

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Vector and full-text search over a Chroma collection.

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Publisher

Chroma

License

Apache-2.0

Transport

Local subprocess

Tools

4

What this server does

Chroma is an open-source embedding database; this official server exposes a Chroma Cloud collection as a retrieval surface for the assistant. Add documents, list collections, and query by semantic similarity or metadata filter. It is a clean foundation for retrieval-augmented workflows: ingest a corpus once, then let the model pull the most relevant chunks at answer time. The configuration here targets Chroma Cloud; the same server can point at a local or self-hosted Chroma by changing the client type.

Tools included

  • chroma_query_documents

    Query a collection by semantic similarity.

  • chroma_add_documents

    Add documents with embeddings to a collection.

  • chroma_list_collections

    List collections in the database.

  • chroma_get_documents

    Fetch documents by ID or filter.

The authoritative list comes from the server's tools/list at runtime. This catalog entry may lag the upstream until the next ToolPiper release.

Install in ToolPiper

ToolPiper handles the JSON configuration. Click Install, fill in any required tokens, and the server is ready in your chat.

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Install in another client

Install in another MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue, Cline)

Add this to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chroma": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "chroma-mcp",
        "--client-type",
        "cloud",
        "--tenant",
        "${CHROMA_TENANT}",
        "--database",
        "${CHROMA_DATABASE}",
        "--api-key",
        "${CHROMA_API_KEY}"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Example prompts

  • "Add these support articles to the knowledge-base collection."

  • "Find the three most relevant documents for 'how do refunds work'."

  • "List my collections and how many documents each holds."

Security notes

For Chroma Cloud the API key gates access to your tenant and bills against your account; treat it as a credential. Collections store whatever text you add, in a hosted database, so be deliberate about ingesting anything sensitive. A self-hosted Chroma avoids the cloud credential but is only as secure as its host.

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