Connect Adara to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Claude Code (MCP)

What Is the Adara MCP Server?

adara-mcp-translate is an open-source Model Context Protocol server that exposes Adara Translate to any MCP-compatible AI agent. Once connected, your assistant can translate text, translate local documents, transcribe audio files, and read your credit balance — without you leaving the chat.

Before You Start

• A free or paid Adara Translate account.
• Node.js 18 or later installed on the machine that runs your MCP client. The npx command must be on your PATH.
• An Adara API key. Create one at Dashboard → API Keys. Keys are shown once — copy the full adara_live_... value the moment it appears.

Four Tools Your Agent Will See

• translate_text — translate a string using DeepL, Google, Microsoft, GPT, or Gemini. Consumes credits.
• translate_document — extract and translate a local TXT, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV, PPTX, or SRT file up to 5 MB.
• transcribe_audio — transcribe a local MP3, WAV, OGG, M4A, or WebM file up to 25 MB via Whisper.
• get_user_credits — read-only balance check. Does not consume credits.

Claude Desktop Setup

Edit claude_desktop_config.json:

• macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows — %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux — ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following block, replacing the placeholder with your real key:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adara": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "adara-mcp-translate"],
      "env": { "ADARA_API_KEY": "adara_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The four Adara tools will appear in the tools list.

Cursor Setup

Open Cursor's MCP settings (Settings → MCP, or edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json directly) and paste the same mcpServers block shown above. The exact menu path has moved between Cursor versions — if the UI has changed, the JSON file still works.

Claude Code Setup

Register the server from the command line:

claude mcp add adara -e ADARA_API_KEY=adara_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- npx -y adara-mcp-translate

That single command wires the server into your Claude Code config.

Example Prompts

• "Translate 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' into Spanish using DeepL."
• "Translate /Users/me/Documents/contract.docx into French and save the text to /Users/me/Documents/contract.fr.txt." (Use absolute paths — ~ is not expanded by the server.)
• "Transcribe /Users/me/Recordings/standup.m4a."
• "Check my Adara credit balance before translating this document."

Security Notes

• Your API key is never logged in full. Only a 16-character prefix is printed at startup, so operators can confirm which key is loaded without exposing it.
• Stdio transport is local-only — no network listener is opened on your machine. Each MCP client spawns its own subprocess.
• When a document translation specifies an outputPath, the server refuses to overwrite existing files and rejects .. traversal before any billed work runs.

Troubleshooting

• "ADARA_API_KEY is required" — the environment variable is missing from your MCP client config.
• "API key is invalid or revoked" — the key was deleted in the dashboard. Generate a new one.
• "Insufficient credits" — top up in Dashboard → Billing.
• Tool not appearing — fully restart your MCP client after editing the config. Some clients only reload MCP servers on a cold start.

Next Steps

Once the server is connected, explore the same API from scripts or CI via the REST API, or see Developer Workflows for automation ideas.