meetup-mcp

Organizer-focused MCP server for managing a single Meetup group. Runs as a persistent HTTP service via Docker Compose — start it once, connect from any Claude Code session.

This server is intentionally simple:

• no built-in content templating
• no raw GraphQL passthrough
• single-group scope per server instance
• publish actions gated by explicit configuration

Use your LLM to generate event content. Use this MCP server to execute Meetup operations safely.

Features

• authorize — OAuth2 authorization flow (first run only)
• get_group — group metadata and member count
• search_events — search by status: upcoming, past, draft
• get_event — full event details by ID
• list_venues — known venues for the group
• create_event — creates as DRAFT by default
• edit_event — update title, description, datetime, duration, venue, directions, featured photo
• add_event_speaker — add structured speaker details to an event
• update_event_speaker — edit structured speaker details or speaker photo
• remove_event_speaker — remove structured speaker details from an event
• attach_event_speaker_photo — attach an uploaded photo to the event speaker profile
• publish_event — gated behind MEETUP_ALLOW_PUBLISH=true
• create_event_photo_upload — get a direct upload ticket (photoId + uploadUrl)
• attach_event_photo — attach an uploaded photo to an event

Safety model

• Single group lock via MEETUP_GROUP_URLNAME
• Mode-based capability control (organizer vs read_only)
• All writes require organizer mode
• Publishing blocked by default (MEETUP_ALLOW_PUBLISH=false)
• Events created as DRAFT unless publish is explicitly enabled and requested

Policy violations return errors prefixed with POLICY_DENIED.

Deployment

Prerequisites

• Docker + Docker Compose
• A Meetup Pro account with API access
• A Meetup OAuth consumer (key + secret)

1. Create a Meetup OAuth consumer

1. Go to https://www.meetup.com/api/oauth/create/
2. Set Redirect URI to http://127.0.0.1:8787/meetup/oauth/callback
3. Copy your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret

2. Configure environment

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your values:

cp .env.example .env

MEETUP_GROUP_URLNAME=your-group-urlname
MEETUP_MODE=organizer
MEETUP_ALLOW_PUBLISH=false
MEETUP_OAUTH_KEY=your-consumer-key
MEETUP_OAUTH_SECRET=your-consumer-secret

3. Build the container image

dotnet publish src/Meetup.McpServer/Meetup.McpServer.csproj /t:PublishContainer

4. Start the server

docker compose up -d

The server runs on http://localhost:5180/mcp and restarts automatically unless explicitly stopped.

5. Configure Claude Code

The included .mcp.json points Claude Code at the running server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "meetup": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:5180/mcp"
    }
  }
}

6. Authorize (first run only)

The first time you make any API call, the server will prompt for authorization. Call the authorize tool — it returns a URL to open in your browser. After you authorize on Meetup's site, the browser will redirect to http://127.0.0.1:8787/meetup/oauth/callback?code=....

Important: If the server is running on a remote machine (VM, cloud), the browser redirect lands on your local machine, not the server. Copy the full callback URL and run:

curl "http://YOUR_SERVER:8787/meetup/oauth/callback?code=THE_CODE"

Tokens are persisted in a Docker volume (meetup-mcp-tokens) and survive container restarts. You only need to authorize once per token lifetime.

Note: If you previously ran this image and the OAuth token store fails to persist, your Docker volume may have incorrect ownership. Remove and recreate it:

docker compose down
docker volume rm meetup-mcp-tokens
docker compose up -d

Configuration reference

Variable	Required	Default	Description
MEETUP_GROUP_URLNAME	Yes	—	Meetup group URL name (e.g. nhdnug)
MEETUP_MODE	No	organizer	organizer or read_only
MEETUP_ALLOW_PUBLISH	No	false	Enable publish_event tool
MEETUP_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE	No	false	Reserved for future destructive operations
MEETUP_USE_FAKE_API	No	false	Use in-memory fake responses (local dev)
MEETUP_OAUTH_KEY	Yes*	—	OAuth consumer key
MEETUP_OAUTH_SECRET	Yes*	—	OAuth consumer secret
MEETUP_OAUTH_REDIRECT_URI	No	http://127.0.0.1:8787/meetup/oauth/callback	OAuth redirect URI
MEETUP_TOKEN_STORE_PATH	No	~/.meetup-mcp/tokens.json	Token persistence path
MEETUP_API_URL	No	https://api.meetup.com/gql-ext	Meetup GraphQL endpoint
MEETUP_OAUTH_ACCESS_URL	No	https://secure.meetup.com/oauth2/access	Token exchange endpoint

*Not required when MEETUP_USE_FAKE_API=true

Image upload flow

Photo upload is a two-step process:

1. Call create_event_photo_upload → returns { photoId, uploadUrl }
2. PUT image bytes directly to uploadUrl
3. Call attach_event_photo or attach_event_speaker_photo with eventId + photoId

Structured speaker support

Meetup's current GraphQL API exposes a single structured speakerDetails object per event, not a free-form speaker array. The MCP server exposes this through focused tools:

• add_event_speaker
• update_event_speaker
• remove_event_speaker
• attach_event_speaker_photo

get_event now returns structured speaker details when present.

Local development

dotnet build MeetupMcp.slnx
dotnet test MeetupMcp.slnx

Run against in-memory fake data (no Meetup credentials needed):

MEETUP_GROUP_URLNAME=nhdnug \
MEETUP_USE_FAKE_API=true \
dotnet run --project src/Meetup.McpServer/Meetup.McpServer.csproj

Repository

• GitHub: https://github.com/Aaronontheweb/meetup-mcp