Pixel Art MCP Server

simplepixelart-mcp

An MCP server that gives AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code…) real pixel art tools: turn any image into pixel art, extract a palette, recolour sprites to PICO-8 or Game Boy colours, and upscale without blur.

Runs locally, works on PNG and JPEG files or image URLs, no API keys, no native dependencies.

Tools

Install

Add it to your MCP client config. For Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json), Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json) and most other clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixel-art": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "simplepixelart-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add pixel-art -- npx -y simplepixelart-mcp

Requires Node.js 18 or newer.

Hosted (no install)

A remote endpoint runs at https://mcp.simplepixelart.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no auth). Images go in as a public URL or base64 and come back as PNG. Limits: 4 MB / 2048x2048 input, 1024 px output, 20 requests a minute.

claude mcp add --transport http pixel-art https://mcp.simplepixelart.com/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixel-art": { "url": "https://mcp.simplepixelart.com/mcp" }
  }
}

To run the HTTP server yourself: npm run start:http (listens on 127.0.0.1:4020, set PORT / HOST to change).

Examples

Ask your assistant things like:

• "Turn ~/photos/cat.jpg into 48 px wide pixel art with the PICO-8 palette, and save an 8x preview."
• "Extract a 6-colour palette from this screenshot and give me the .gpl file."
• "Recolour every sprite in assets/ to the Game Boy palette."
• "Upscale hero.png 10x for the store page."

Use it as a library

import { loadImage, pixelate, saveImage } from 'simplepixelart-mcp/src/pixel.js'

const img = await loadImage('photo.jpg')
const { display, palette } = pixelate(img, { width: 64, palette: 'sweetie-16', scale: 8 })
await saveImage(display, 'photo-pixel.png')

Want to edit the result?

The tools get you a clean starting grid; the fun part is fixing it by hand. Open the PNG in SimplePixelArt, a free online pixel art editor with layers, animation and tileset tools, or try its in-browser pixel art converter for live adjustments. No account needed.

Development

npm install
npm test        # starts the server over stdio and calls every tool

License

MIT © Comficker