BGG MCP is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides AI assistants with access to BoardGameGeek and its related board game data. Through this server, AI assistants can retrieve and filter board game data, user collections, and profiles.
Main capabilities
- Access the BoardGameGeek API to retrieve board game details, user collections, and user profiles.
- Provide price data, with real-time pricing from multiple retailers provided by BoardGamePrices.co.uk.
- Provide game recommendations, with algorithmic similarity recommendations based on BoardGameGeek data provided by Recommend.Games.
- Results link back to the corresponding pages on boardgamegeek.com, and the assistant is prompted to include these links in its answers.
- Expose resources for AI assistants to directly access contextual information.
- Include preconfigured prompts for common workflows.
Usage
- Authentication: Most tools require authentication to access the BoardGameGeek API. It can be configured via BGG_API_KEY (recommended) or BGG_COOKIE. The API key must be obtained from BoardGameGeek's API application form. If both are provided, BGG_API_KEY is used by default.
- Username configuration: Optionally set the BGG_USERNAME environment variable so that self-references such as "me" and "my" can be used in queries. If a self-reference is used without a username set, a clear error message will be received.
- Installation methods: A) Claude Desktop extension (macOS / Windows): Download bgg-mcp.mcpb from the latest release and double-click it, then enter the BGG API key and username in the installation dialog; no Docker or Go is required. B) Docker: BGG MCP has been published to Docker Hub and listed in the MCP Registry. The configuration can be added to claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Desktop) or settings.json (VS Code / Cursor). Use --pull=always to fetch the latest image on every startup; remove this parameter if offline startup is needed. C) Manual setup: Requires installing Go to build the binary. The project includes a Makefile to simplify building and management, and it can also be built directly with Go. Then add a configuration pointing to that binary in the server list in settings.json or claude_desktop_config.json.
- Update notifications: When running locally, BGG MCP checks GitHub once a day for a new version. If there is one, the assistant will mention it once in each conversation and include the release link. Set BGG_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK to true to disable this. In HTTP mode, the server does not check for updates.
Use cases
- Ask an AI assistant about board game recommendations, collection queries, user profiles, price comparisons, and rules questions.
- Example prompts include recommendation queries, as well as searching the rules forum by mentioning BGG and explicitly referring to board games, or using the rules-question prompt.
Limitations
- Most tools require authentication, requiring a BGG API key or the use of a Cookie.
- Manual building requires a Go environment.
- Prices and recommendations depend on the third-party services BoardGamePrices.co.uk and Recommend.Games, respectively.
- Self-reference queries require BGG_USERNAME to be set in advance.
