alpaca-mcp-server: Instructions file for Codex

AGENTS.md

alpaca-mcp-server AGENTS.md is an instructions file for Codex, OpenCode from alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server. It costs 1,625 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

Agent instructions for Alpaca's MCP server, which turns Alpaca's OpenAPI descriptions into tools for a coding agent. Alpaca provides APIs for activities such as market data and paper trading, where paper trading means simulated orders rather than real-money trades.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when syncing Alpaca OpenAPI specifications, checking generated tool sets, or running the server's local and paper-trading tests.
Why use it?
It describes how to update the API descriptions and verify that generated tools, names, and test coverage still match. This reduces errors when Alpaca changes its API.

Instructions file for CodexOpenCode

Written for Codex and OpenCode: the file is AGENTS.md.

This is alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server's own configuration. It tells Codex and OpenCode how to work on alpaca-mcp-server itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything alpaca-mcp-server configures →

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server/main/AGENTS.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server

Made for: Codex, OpenCode.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

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README.md
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Per session 1,625 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,625 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.01625 $0.01625
Opus 5 $0.00813 $0.00813
Sonnet 5 $0.00325 $0.00325
Haiku 4.5 $0.00162 $0.00162

Measured 8d ago against content hash 3f2917fc7ab4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

alpaca-mcp-server AGENTS.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

2 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

AGENTS.md · 121 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 121 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Agent Instructions

Architecture Overview

This MCP server auto-generates tools from bundled OpenAPI specs (src/alpaca_mcp_server/specs/) using FastMCP's from_openapi(). Tool names, descriptions, and output risk classifications are defined in tool_registry.py. Complex endpoints (orders, historical data) use hand-written overrides in overrides.py and market_data_overrides.py. Toolset filtering is defined in toolsets.py. A trust-boundary middleware (security.py) wraps every tool result in a security envelope to mitigate prompt injection via tool outputs.

The test suite has three layers:

  • tests/test_integrity.py — Spec ↔ toolset ↔ names consistency (no network)
  • tests/test_server_construction.py — Server builds correctly and exposes the expected tool set (no network)
  • tests/test_paper_integration.py — Real API calls against Alpaca paper (needs credentials)

CI is defined in .github/workflows/ci.yml with two jobs: test-core (runs on every PR) and test-integration (runs when ALPACA_API_KEY / ALPACA_SECRET_KEY secrets are available).


Syncing OpenAPI Specs

When asked to "sync the MCP server" or "update specs", follow this process:

Step 1: Download latest specs

Run the sync script:

./scripts/sync-specs.sh

After downloading, the script rewrites the declared OpenAPI version from 3.1.2 to 3.1.1. FastMCP parses specs with openapi-pydantic, which only accepts 3.1.0 and 3.1.1 and rejects anything newer, so without this the server builds zero tools. Expect a one-character difference from the published spec. Remove that line once openapi-pydantic supports 3.1.2.

Step 2: Diff the specs

Check what changed:

git diff src/alpaca_mcp_server/specs/

Classify every change into one of three categories:

A. Modified existing endpoints

Parameter or schema changes to endpoints already in the allowlist (toolsets.py). Action for auto-generated tools: No code changes needed — the spec update is sufficient. Action for overrides: If the modified endpoint has its operationId in OVERRIDE_OPERATION_IDS (e.g., postOrder), the auto-generator is bypassed and the hand-written override in overrides.py or market_data_overrides.py is used instead. Spec changes do NOT flow through to overrides automatically. For every override whose underlying spec changed, you must:

Read the full file on GitHub · 121 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 121 lines · 1,625 tokens per session scan A 3f2917fc7ab4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

alpaca-mcp-server AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server (950 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,625 tokens to every session, about $0.0081 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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