Jellyfin MCP Server: Give AI Agents Access to Your Media Library, Playback, and Users

Why Give AI Access to Jellyfin?

Jellyfin is the free, open-source media server that organizes your movies, TV shows, music, and photos. It handles transcoding, user management, and remote streaming without any subscription fees or tracking.

But when you're writing automation scripts or building custom clients in Claude or Cursor, your AI assistant can't see your Jellyfin instance. It can't check what's currently playing, look up metadata for a specific movie, or verify transcoding settings. You keep switching to the Jellyfin dashboard.

With DataFaucet, you browse your Jellyfin web interface once and it captures the API calls as MCP tools. Now your AI coding assistant can query your media library, check active streams, and manage users directly.

What AI Agents Can Do With Jellyfin Access

Once DataFaucet creates an MCP server from your Jellyfin session, AI agents can:

• Search your media library by title, genre, year, or studio
• Check active playback sessions with transcoding status and bitrate
• List users with watch history and access permissions
• View server activity logs for troubleshooting
• Browse collections and playlists with item counts
• Check transcoding queue and hardware acceleration status
• Monitor library scan progress and newly added items

Setting Up Jellyfin as an MCP Server with DataFaucet

Step 1: Browse Your Jellyfin Dashboard

Open your Jellyfin web interface and navigate through the pages you want AI access to: Dashboard, Libraries, Users, Playback, and Activity logs.

Step 2: DataFaucet Captures the API

DataFaucet's browser extension records the API calls your browser makes to Jellyfin. Each call becomes a callable MCP tool with parameters and response types.

Step 3: Connect to Your AI Client

Add the generated MCP server to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf. Your AI assistant can now query your media server whenever it needs context.

Example: AI Checks Active Streams

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User: Who's watching something on Jellyfin right now?

AI (via DataFaucet MCP): 2 active sessions:

• sarah: "The Bear S03E04" — direct play, 1080p
• guest: "Interstellar" — transcoding to 720p (CPU at 45%)

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Example: AI Searches Your Library

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User: Do I have any Christopher Nolan movies in my library?

AI (via DataFaucet MCP): Found 7 Christopher Nolan films:

• Oppenheimer (2023) — 4K HDR, 48.2 GB
• Tenet (2020) — 1080p, 14.1 GB
• Dunkirk (2017) — 4K, 32.7 GB
• Interstellar (2014) — 4K HDR, 52.1 GB
• The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-2012) — 1080p
• Inception (2010) — 1080p, 12.8 GB

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Why Not Just Use the Jellyfin API Directly?

Jellyfin has a well-documented REST API, but building a dedicated MCP server means writing endpoint wrappers, handling API key authentication, managing response parsing, and keeping up with API changes across versions.

DataFaucet skips all of that. It watches what your browser does and replicates those exact calls as structured MCP tools. If Jellyfin updates its API, you just re-capture.

Works With Any MCP Client

The Jellyfin MCP server created by DataFaucet works with:

• Claude Desktop and Claude Code
• Cursor (AI-powered editor)
• Windsurf (Codeium's IDE)
• Any MCP-compatible client

Your AI gets real-time data from your Jellyfin server regardless of which tool you use.

Get Started

Create your Jellyfin MCP server with DataFaucet — browse your Jellyfin dashboard once, get AI access to your entire media library in under two minutes.