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Official · by chroma-core

Chroma MCP server

The Chroma MCP server lets an AI assistant make, examine, alter and remove collections, plus add, search, fetch, edit and drop documents.

  • Apache-2.0 licence
  • ★ 600 on GitHub
  • Verified against its source 19 Oct 2026
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What the Chroma MCP server does

Using Chroma's embedding database, an assistant can list collections with pagination, create one with optional HNSW settings, preview a sample of its documents, fetch detailed collection information, count documents, rename or change a collection's metadata, and delete collections. Inside a collection it can insert documents with optional metadata and user-chosen identifiers, run semantic searches with advanced filtering, retrieve documents by IDs or filters with pagination, modify their content, metadata, or embeddings, and remove specific documents. Claude Desktop is listed as the client, and cloud client use requires a Chroma Cloud tenant ID, database name, and API key, with the local server noted as the alternative.

Tools it gives your assistant

12 tools or toolsets, as its documentation lists them.

  • chroma_list_collections Lists collections with pagination
  • chroma_create_collection Creates a collection with optional HNSW configuration
  • chroma_peek_collection Shows a sample of documents in a collection
  • chroma_get_collection_info Gets detailed information about a collection
  • chroma_get_collection_count Gets the number of documents in a collection
  • chroma_modify_collection Updates a collection's name or metadata
  • chroma_delete_collection Deletes a collection
  • chroma_add_documents Adds documents with optional metadata and custom IDs
  • chroma_query_documents Semantic search over documents with advanced filtering
  • chroma_get_documents Retrieves documents by IDs or filters with pagination
  • chroma_update_documents Updates existing documents' content, metadata, or embeddings
  • chroma_delete_documents Deletes specific documents from a collection

How to install it

What you need

In the chroma-core documentation's own words:

  • “To connect to Chroma Cloud, add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json file”

Commands and settings change between versions. Check the official instructions before you install.