Best for
- Robotics developers using ROS 1 or ROS 2
- Teams that want MCP clients to observe or control robots
- Robot diagnosis, experimentation, and simulation
R
47FMRS · D
This MCP server targets ROS robot control, observation, and diagnosis. The source explicitly documents ROS 1 and ROS 2 support, stdio transport, and compatibility with several MCP clients; it does not provide canonical tool names, a client configuration example, authentication details, or evidence of upstream official maintenance.
ROS MCP Server connects large language models such as Claude, GPT, and Gemini to robots through MCP and ROS. It provides bidirectional communication without changes to existing robot source code and can discover and use ROS topics, services, actions, and parameters. The server supports ROS 1 and ROS 2.
Tools
The tool list has not been reviewed yet.
Setup
Follow the project's installation guide. The server is distributed as the ros-mcp package on PyPI and runs the ros-mcp executable over stdio.
Fit and risk
Not for
- Systems that do not use ROS or ROS 2
- AI applications expected to run independently without a ROS connection
- Production deployments requiring guaranteed authentication or authorization, which are not described in the source
Required permissions
- Access ROS topics, services, actions, and parameters
- Read sensor data and robot state
- Publish messages, call services or actions, and set parameters when requested
- Add a rosbridge node to the existing ROS setup
Risks and side effects
- Natural-language requests may trigger control operations on real robots
- Changing parameters or calling services and actions may affect robot state and surrounding equipment
- The source does not describe authentication, authorization, or safety controls
Troubleshooting
- Confirm that installation was completed according to the installation guide
- Confirm that the client supports MCP and is configured to launch ros-mcp
- Confirm that the ROS or ROS 2 environment is running
- Confirm that a rosbridge node has been added to the existing ROS setup
- Check that the client and server use stdio transport
Use cases
Control ROS robots with natural-language instructions
Read sensor data and monitor robot state
Publish to and subscribe to ROS topics
Call ROS services and actions
Diagnose industrial robot end effectors
Control a simulated Unitree Go2 in NVIDIA Isaac Sim
Supported clients
Claude CodeFull support
Codex CLIFull support
Gemini CLIFull support
Claude DesktopFull support
ChatGPTFull support
CursorFull support