Install a Deepgram MCP Server

You are setting up Deepgram MCP integration for the user. Follow these steps.

Step 1: Pick a path

Three paths exist. Pick by whether the user has, or wants, a Deepgram API key.

Decision rule:

• The user already has the CLI, or wants dg listen / dg speak / dg init too → Path A.
• The user has an API key but wants only the MCP server, no CLI → Path B.
• The user has no API key, or wants something working in one command → Path C.

A key-authenticated hosted variant of Paths A/B also exists at api.dx.deepgram.com/kapa/mcp, with nothing to install — see "The kapa endpoints are not credential-free" below.

Paths A and B are the same server: dg mcp wraps the deepgram-mcp package. Both proxy Deepgram's developer API and fetch their tool list from Deepgram at runtime, so new tools appear on reconnect without a package upgrade. As of this writing that list is a single documentation and knowledge-source search tool (search_deepgram_knowledge_sources) — check tools/list in the user's client for what is live rather than promising a tool set.

Paths A/B and Path C both answer Deepgram questions from documentation, so installing more than one is usually redundant. Path C is the only one that works with no credentials.

Step 2: Detect the environment

Determine which AI coding tool the user is running. Check for:

• Claude Code — look for a .claude/ directory in the project or user home
• Cursor — look for a .cursor/ directory in the project root
• Windsurf — look for a .windsurf/ directory in the project root

If multiple are detected, or none are detected, ask the user which tool they want to configure.

Step 3: Ask about scope

Ask the user whether they want the MCP server configured:

• For this project only (recommended for team repos)
• Globally (available in all projects)

Path A — Deepgram CLI MCP proxy (dg mcp)

A1. Install the CLI

Check first: dg --version (or deepctl --version, or where dg on Windows). The package is deepctl and installs three interchangeable binaries — dg, deepctl, and deepgram.

# macOS / Linux — Homebrew (also brings in ffmpeg and portaudio)
brew tap deepgram/tap && brew install deepgram

# macOS / Linux — install script
curl -fsSL https://deepgram.com/install.sh | sh

# pip / uv / pipx
pip install deepctl
uv tool install deepctl
pipx install deepctl

# Windows — PowerShell
iwr https://deepgram.com/install.ps1 -useb | iex

To upgrade, use the CLI's own updater: dg update (add --check-only to check without installing). If it was installed with Homebrew, brew upgrade deepgram also works.

A2. Authenticate — required

dg mcp will not start without credentials. Do this before configuring any editor:

dg login                  # interactive; or dg login --api-key <KEY>
dg whoami                 # confirm: "authenticated": true

DEEPGRAM_API_KEY in the environment works instead of dg login. Get a key at https://console.deepgram.com.

A3. Configure the editor

Claude Code

# Project scope
claude mcp add deepgram --scope project dg mcp

# User/global scope
claude mcp add deepgram dg mcp

Cursor

Write or merge into the project's .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deepgram": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "dg",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Write or merge into the project's .windsurf/mcp.json, using the same object as Cursor above.

Without a permanent install

uvx and pipx run fetch deepctl on demand. Credentials still come from dg login or DEEPGRAM_API_KEY:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deepgram": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["deepctl", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Other tools

• Transport: stdio
• Command: dg
• Args: ["mcp"]

dg mcp --transport sse --port 8000 serves SSE instead, for clients that need HTTP.

Path B — Standalone deepgram-mcp

The MCP server without the rest of the CLI. One package, one binary.

pip install deepgram-mcp
export DEEPGRAM_API_KEY=your_key_here

Claude Code

claude mcp add deepgram -- deepgram-mcp

Cursor / Windsurf

Write or merge into .cursor/mcp.json or the Windsurf MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deepgram": {
      "command": "deepgram-mcp",
      "env": {
        "DEEPGRAM_API_KEY": "your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

--api-key overrides the environment variable, and --transport sse --port 8000 serves SSE. Source: https://github.com/deepgram/mcp.

Path C — Hosted documentation MCP (no credentials)

Use https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server. It answers unauthenticated, needs no API key, and exposes one tool, searchDocs, which returns documentation passages with source URLs.

Claude Code

# Project scope
claude mcp add deepgram-docs --scope project --transport http https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server

# User/global scope
claude mcp add deepgram-docs --transport http https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server

Cursor

Write or merge into the project's .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deepgram-docs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server"
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Write or merge into the project's .windsurf/mcp.json, using the same object as Cursor above.

Other tools

• Type: HTTP
• URL: https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server

The kapa endpoints are not credential-free

https://api.dx.deepgram.com/kapa/mcp and https://deepgram.mcp.kapa.ai both exist, and both reject an unauthenticated request with HTTP 401 plus a WWW-Authenticate: Bearer resource_metadata=... header, so a client that implements MCP's OAuth flow can connect to either. They differ in whether a Deepgram API key works:

• api.dx.deepgram.com/kapa/mcp accepts a Deepgram API key. Send it as either Authorization: Token <KEY> or Authorization: Bearer <KEY> and initialize returns 200 from deepgram-mcp-relay; an invalid key gets 401. tools/list returns the same single search_deepgram_knowledge_sources tool as Paths A and B, so this is the hosted HTTP form of the same server — useful when the user has a key but cannot install anything. Pass the key as a header, or the client falls back to OAuth:

  claude mcp add deepgram-relay --transport http https://api.dx.deepgram.com/kapa/mcp \
    --header "Authorization: Token $DEEPGRAM_API_KEY"
  

• deepgram.mcp.kapa.ai does not. A Deepgram API key gets 401 with either scheme. OAuth is the only way in.

Neither is the zero-setup option — use /_mcp/server for that.

Step 4: Confirm

• Claude Code — run /reload-plugins to activate immediately, no restart needed.
• Cursor / Windsurf / Other — the user may need to restart or reload their tool.

Then tell the user the server is configured, and check what it actually exposes before describing it — have the client list its tools rather than naming tools from memory.

For Path C, add:

Your tool can now search Deepgram's documentation directly — try asking about API parameters, voice agents, or model capabilities.

Link them to Deepgram Agentic Tools for more details.

Troubleshooting

Error: DEEPGRAM_API_KEY is not set in the configuration file (...config.yaml) or environment variable. followed by Run deepctl login to configure the CLI with your Deepgram account. → Path A with no credentials. dg mcp exits 1 before serving anything. Run dg login, or set DEEPGRAM_API_KEY. Confirm with dg whoami.

Error: No API key. Set DEEPGRAM_API_KEY or use --api-key. → Path B with no credentials. Export DEEPGRAM_API_KEY, put it in the server's env block, or pass --api-key.

! Needs authentication in claude mcp list, or HTTP 401 {"status_code":401,"detail":"Authentication required"} / {"error":"invalid_token"} → You are pointed at a kapa endpoint with no credentials. Switch to https://developers.deepgram.com/_mcp/server, which needs none. To stay on api.dx.deepgram.com/kapa/mcp, add --header "Authorization: Token $DEEPGRAM_API_KEY" — that endpoint accepts a Deepgram API key. On deepgram.mcp.kapa.ai an API key does not work; let the client run its OAuth flow instead.

Server "deepgram-docs" is defined in multiple scopes with different endpoints → An earlier setup registered deepgram-docs at a kapa URL in user scope, and this one added a different URL in project scope. OAuth tokens are stored per endpoint, so authenticating one does not carry over. Keep one: claude mcp remove deepgram-docs -s user (or -s project). Check for a pre-existing entry with claude mcp get deepgram-docs before adding, and pick a distinct server name if the user wants to keep both.

ImportError mentioning streamablehttp_client on startup → An incompatible mcp package. deepgram-mcp imports streamablehttp_client from mcp.client.streamable_http, which mcp 2.0 removed. Install into a clean environment, or pin mcp>=1.0.0,<2.0.0. Installing deepctl pins this for you.

The server connects but exposes fewer tools than expected → Expected. Paths A and B fetch their tool list from Deepgram at runtime, so it reflects what the API serves right now, not what the package version implies. Reconnect to pick up new tools.

Anything else on Path A → Verify dg --version works and dg mcp runs in a terminal without errors, then dg update.

Sources

• Deepgram CLI — https://github.com/deepgram/cli
• deepgram-mcp — https://github.com/deepgram/mcp
• Deepgram Agentic Tools — https://developers.deepgram.com/developer-tools/agentic-tools