The OpenQR MCP server: QR codes your AI agent can create, edit and measure

MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for letting an AI agent call external tools. Instead of you writing code against the OpenQR REST API, your agent connects to an MCP server, discovers the tools it exposes, and calls them itself when a request needs them. OpenQR runs a hosted MCP server, so there is nothing to install or self-host: you point your client at one URL, paste a key, and the agent can generate and manage QR codes on your behalf.

The OpenQR MCP endpoint and how auth works

OpenQR exposes a single Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint at https://openqr.uk/mcp, speaking JSON-RPC 2.0 over POST. There is no stdio binary to install and nothing to run locally — it is a hosted server, so any MCP client that supports the HTTP transport can reach it.

Authentication is the same free API key used everywhere else in OpenQR: you send it as Authorization: Bearer oqr_… on the connection. Create one in the dashboard at openqr.uk/api — sign in with a magic link, open API keys, and copy the key (it is shown once and stored only as a SHA-256 hash). Every tool call needs it; an unauthenticated request gets a clear error telling you to add a key rather than silently failing.

Connecting from a real client

Most MCP clients — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and Cline — take the same shape of config: a server name, the HTTP transport, the URL, and an Authorization header. Add this to the client's MCP settings and restart it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openqr": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://openqr.uk/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer oqr_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

• Claude Desktop — add the block to its mcpServers config and restart; the tools appear under the connectors menu.
• Claude Code — register the server with claude mcp add using the HTTP transport and the same URL and header.
• Cursor — add it to your MCP servers settings; the tools become available to the agent in chat.
• Cline — add the same server entry in its MCP configuration.
• OpenClaw — the self-hosted personal AI assistant supports MCP servers too; register https://openqr.uk/mcp with the Bearer header via its own MCP config (see its CLI docs for the exact file).

Once connected, the agent calls tools/list automatically and sees everything below. From there you describe the outcome you want in plain English, and the agent picks the tool and fills in the arguments. Prefer code? Import the full OpenAPI 3.1 spec into the same clients for the REST side.

The 18 OpenQR MCP tools

Anything you can do in the dashboard, an agent can do over MCP. The 18 tools fall into seven groups. Argument names below are exact: they are what the server expects.

Alongside the tools, prompts/list returns four ready-made OpenQR workflows: create_tracked_qr, bulk_qr_for_print, brand_a_qr and qr_scan_report. A prompt is a client-surfaced template, not a tool call: your client shows it as a one-click starting point, and picking it walks the agent through the underlying tool calls. resources/list exposes OpenQR's built-in style presets (Classic, Teal, High Contrast, Dots, Classy) as readable JSON an agent can pass to create_theme.

Example prompts that drive the tools

You never name the tools yourself. You describe the outcome and the agent maps it. A few that work well:

• “Make a QR code for https://openqr.uk and save it as a 1024px PNG.” → generate_qr
• “Create a dynamic code pointing at our spring-sale page, label it Spring Sale.” → create_dynamic_qr
• “That campaign moved — repoint the Spring Sale code to the new URL.” → update_dynamic_qr
• “How many scans has the Spring Sale code had, and where from?” → get_scans
• “Make editable codes for each of these 50 product URLs.” → bulk_create_dynamic_qr
• “Put all the restaurant table codes in a folder called Tables.” → create_folder + update_dynamic_qr
• “Save our brand style as a theme called Brand, then make all the new codes use it.” → create_theme + create_dynamic_qr with theme

Worked example 1: a support/marketing agent

A marketing agent is asked to launch a campaign and report back on it later. First it creates the dynamic code — when you ask it to, it issues this tool call (shown here as the raw JSON-RPC a client would send, so you can see exactly what crosses the wire):

curl -X POST https://openqr.uk/mcp \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer oqr_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "create_dynamic_qr",
      "arguments": {
        "destination": "https://example.com/spring-sale",
        "label": "Spring Sale"
      }
    }
  }'

The server replies with a text result the agent can read back to you — the new code's id and its oqr.to/<slug> short link. You print the code on the poster. A week later you ask “how is Spring Sale doing?” and the agent calls get_scans with that id:

curl -X POST https://openqr.uk/mcp \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer oqr_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 2,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "get_scans",
      "arguments": { "id": "the-code-id-from-step-1" }
    }
  }'

Back comes a plain-text summary: total scans, scans over the account's window (7 days on Free, 30 on Pro), and the top countries, plus devices and referrers on Pro. Because the destination is dynamic, the same agent can repoint it the moment the sale ends: call update_dynamic_qr with the id and a new destination, and every already-printed code now lands somewhere else. That edit-without-reprint loop is the whole point of dynamic codes over the API.

Worked example 2: bulk-creating from a list

Suppose an agent has a list of product URLs and needs an editable code for each. Rather than calling create_dynamic_qr in a loop, it sends one bulk_create_dynamic_qr call with up to 200 codes. In JavaScript, the same call against the MCP endpoint looks like this:

const products = [
  { destination: "https://shop.example.com/p/1001", label: "Mug" },
  { destination: "https://shop.example.com/p/1002", label: "T-shirt" },
  { destination: "https://shop.example.com/p/1003", label: "Sticker pack" },
];

const res = await fetch("https://openqr.uk/mcp", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: "Bearer oqr_your_key_here",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    jsonrpc: "2.0",
    id: 3,
    method: "tools/call",
    params: {
      name: "bulk_create_dynamic_qr",
      arguments: { codes: products },
    },
  }),
});

const { result } = await res.json();
console.log(result.content[0].text); // ids + oqr.to links for each created code

The result lists every created code with its id and short link. A natural next step for the agent: create_folder named “Products”, then update_dynamic_qr on each id with that folder_id to file them. For the deeper patterns — chunking large lists, handling rate limits, organising at scale — see bulk generation and folders.

Where this fits

MCP is the agent layer. If you are building an LLM feature or automation that needs QR codes as one capability among many, you will want both this and the raw API — start with the API getting-started guide for the fundamentals, then read QR codes in LLM apps and workflows for how to weave generation, dynamic links and analytics into a product. OpenQR is free, open-source and watermark-free; the MCP server and the API are free with an account, the free tier includes 1 dynamic code and 7-day analytics, and Pro (£9/mo) lifts that to 25 active codes and a 90-day history window.