ccu-mcp

Talk to your HomeMatic smart home from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client.

ccu-mcp connects to the CCU's built-in JSON-RPC API and exposes your devices, rooms, programs, and system variables as MCP tools. No addons, no XML-API, no cloud — just a direct connection to the CCU on your local network.

Works with any HomeMatic CCU: debmatic (HomeMatic on Debian), a CCU3, or OpenCCU (formerly RaspberryMatic) — anything that exposes the standard /api/homematic.cgi endpoint.

What can it do?

Ask your AI assistant things like:

• "What's the temperature in the bathroom?"
• "Are any windows open?"
• "Set the living room heating to 21 degrees"
• "Show me all devices with low battery"
• "What's the gas meter reading?"
• "Which devices have low battery or haven't been seen in a long time?"
• "Find all channels whose names don't match their device name"
• "Rename all devices to follow a consistent naming convention with floor labels (UG/OG/EG)"
• "Which room is the window sensor in?"

The MCP server handles device discovery, type resolution, session management, and value conversion — the AI just calls the tools.

Prerequisites

• A running HomeMatic CCU (debmatic, CCU3, or OpenCCU — formerly RaspberryMatic) reachable on your network
• The CCU's admin username and password (the same credentials you use to log into the WebUI)
• Node.js 22+ (for running from source or stdio mode) or Docker

Quick start

export CCU_HOST=your-ccu-hostname-or-ip
export CCU_PASSWORD=your-ccu-admin-password
npx ccu-mcp --stdio

If it prints server_ready to stderr, it's working. Press Ctrl+C to stop. Now set it up in your MCP client — see below.

Installation

There are two ways to run this: stdio (the server runs as a subprocess of your MCP client) or HTTP (the server runs standalone in Docker and clients connect over the network). Pick one.

Option A: stdio (direct, simplest)

This is the easiest setup. Your MCP client (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) starts the server as a child process — no Docker, no network config, no auth tokens.

For Claude Code, create a .mcp.json file in your project directory (or any directory where you'll use Claude Code):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "debmatic": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["ccu-mcp", "--stdio"],
      "env": {
        "CCU_HOST": "your-ccu-hostname-or-ip",
        "CCU_PASSWORD": "your-ccu-admin-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace your-ccu-hostname-or-ip with your CCU's hostname (like homematic-ccu3) or IP (like 192.168.1.50), and your-ccu-admin-password with the password you use to log into the CCU WebUI.

Restart Claude Code. Run /mcp to check it connected. You should see debmatic in the list.

Alternatively, use the Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add debmatic -- npx ccu-mcp --stdio

Option B: Docker (standalone HTTP server)

Use this if you want the server running independently — for example on a home server, accessible to multiple clients, or when your MCP client supports HTTP remotes.

1. Start the container:

docker run -d \
  --name ccu-mcp \
  -e CCU_HOST=your-ccu-hostname-or-ip \
  -e CCU_PASSWORD=your-ccu-admin-password \
  -v ccu-data:/data \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  ccu-mcp

2. Get the auth token. The server generates a random bearer token on first startup and saves it inside the container's data volume. You need this token to authenticate your MCP client. Grab it with:

docker exec ccu-mcp grep MCP_AUTH_TOKEN /data/.env

This prints something like MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=e96suzi1iG0H-GPif6K2.... The part after = is your token.

3. Configure your MCP client. If your client uses .mcp.json, add the HTTP server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "debmatic": {
      "url": "http://your-server-ip:3000",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer PASTE-YOUR-TOKEN-HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

To inject the token automatically (requires jq):

TOKEN=$(docker exec ccu-mcp grep MCP_AUTH_TOKEN /data/.env | cut -d= -f2)
jq --arg t "$TOKEN" '.mcpServers.debmatic.headers.Authorization = "Bearer " + $t' .mcp.json > .mcp.json.tmp && mv .mcp.json.tmp .mcp.json

This only updates the debmatic entry — other servers in your .mcp.json are left alone.

4. Check it's healthy:

curl http://localhost:3000/health

Browser-based clients (CORS)

By default the HTTP server sends no CORS headers, so a random web page can't drive a local instance. To let browser-based MCP clients like MCP Inspector connect directly, set MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS to a comma-separated allowlist of trusted origins (e.g. https://app.example,http://localhost:6274). A request whose Origin is on the list gets that exact origin reflected in Access-Control-Allow-Origin — never the wildcard *, which would let any site drive a local instance that controls real CCU hardware. A request from any other origin gets no CORS headers (the browser blocks it) and is rejected server-side by DNS-rebinding protection. Authentication is always enforced regardless: every MCP request needs the bearer token.

The HTTP transport also has DNS-rebinding protection on by default: it rejects requests whose Host header isn't localhost/127.0.0.1 on the configured port. If you reach the server under another hostname (reverse proxy, container DNS name), list those hosts in MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS or legitimate requests get a 403.

TLS. The bearer token travels in the request, so anything beyond loopback should be encrypted. You have two options: terminate TLS at a reverse proxy (Caddy/nginx) in front and bind the server to loopback (MCP_HOST=127.0.0.1), or let the server serve HTTPS itself by setting MCP_TLS_CERT and MCP_TLS_KEY to a PEM cert/key pair. Plain HTTP is still fully supported — it stays the zero-config default — but the server logs a warning at startup when it's serving the token over unencrypted HTTP on a non-loopback bind; set MCP_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT=true to acknowledge that and silence it.

Token rotation & expiry. By default the bearer token lives forever. Two optional, composable controls let you rotate it without dropping clients:

• Auto-generated token — set MCP_AUTH_TOKEN_TTL_DAYS (fractional days allowed) to give the generated token a lifetime. Once it lapses, the server mints a fresh one on the next startup and prints it on stderr, while the just-replaced token keeps validating for MCP_AUTH_TOKEN_GRACE_HOURS (default 24) so in-flight clients survive the swap. Expiry is also enforced live: a lapsed token is rejected mid-run with a 401 + WWW-Authenticate: Bearer … error="invalid_token". To force a rotation sooner, delete $CACHE_DIR/.env (or just its MCP_AUTH_TOKEN line) and restart.
• Explicit token — when you set MCP_AUTH_TOKEN yourself, you own its lifetime (TTL doesn't apply). To rotate, put the new token in MCP_AUTH_TOKEN, move the old one to MCP_AUTH_TOKEN_PREVIOUS, and restart; both are accepted during the overlap. Drop MCP_AUTH_TOKEN_PREVIOUS and restart once every client is on the new token. Comparison stays timing-safe across every currently-valid token.

Brute-force protection (fail2ban). The auto-generated token is 256 bits of randomness, so guessing it is infeasible. If you set MCP_AUTH_TOKEN yourself, make it long and random (e.g. openssl rand -base64 32) — a short or guessable token is the one case brute force matters. The server does not rate-limit or lock out failed logins in-process; that job belongs to a firewall-level tool like fail2ban, which bans the source IP before the request ever reaches the server. To make that easy, every rejected request logs a structured line to stderr:

{"ts":"2026-06-18T17:28:00.370Z","level":"warn","msg":"auth_failed","client":"203.0.113.7","hadToken":true}

Ready-to-use fail2ban config ships in fail2ban/: copy filter.d/ccu-mcp.conf to /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/ and the jail in jail.d/ccu-mcp.local to /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/ (it defaults to 5 failures in 10 minutes → 1-hour ban). The server logs to stderr, so point fail2ban at wherever you collect it — the journal (backend = systemd) when run as a unit, or a file when you redirect stderr/docker logs; both are spelled out in the jail file. Requires LOG_LEVEL=warn or lower (info, the default, is fine; error suppresses the line). Behind a reverse proxy the logged IP is the proxy's, so run fail2ban against the proxy's access log instead.

CORS support was first implemented by @marcinn2 in his fork marcinn2/debmatic-mcp — thanks!

HTTPS

If your CCU uses HTTPS (self-signed certificates are fine), add these environment variables:

CCU_HTTPS=true
CCU_PORT=443

The server accepts self-signed certificates automatically — certificate verification is off by default because CCUs ship with self-signed certs (the server logs a warning when running unverified). To actually verify the connection and close the MITM gap, you have three options:

• Pin the fingerprint (simplest for a self-signed appliance cert): set CCU_TLS_FINGERPRINT to the cert's SHA-256 (hex, with or without colons). The connection is rejected unless the CCU presents exactly that certificate. Read it with:

  echo | openssl s_client -connect "$CCU_HOST:443" 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256
  

• Trust a CA/self-signed PEM: point CCU_CA_CERT at the certificate file for standard chain validation.
• System trust store: if your CCU has a publicly-trusted certificate, set CCU_TLS_VERIFY=true.

CCU_TLS_FINGERPRINT takes precedence over CCU_CA_CERT, which takes precedence over CCU_TLS_VERIFY.

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables:

Tools

25 tools organized by what you'd actually want to do:

Find things — list_devices, list_rooms, list_functions, list_interfaces, list_programs, list_system_variables, list_links, describe_device_type

Read state — get_value, get_values (bulk), get_paramset

Change things — set_value, put_paramset, set_system_variable, create_system_variable, delete_system_variable, assign_channel, unassign_channel, execute_program

Check health — get_service_messages, acknowledge_service_messages, get_rssi, get_system_info

Other — help (context-aware), run_script (raw HomeMatic Script for bulk operations, renaming devices/channels, querying room membership, or anything not covered by the other tools)

Most tools auto-resolve the interface and value types from the device address — you don't need to know whether a device is on BidCos-RF or HmIP-RF.

Resources and prompts

Besides tools, the server exposes MCP resources — browsable JSON snapshots your client can attach as context:

homematic://devices, homematic://rooms, homematic://functions, homematic://programs, homematic://sysvars, homematic://interfaces, homematic://device-types, homematic://system

The server polls the CCU in the background (every RESOURCE_POLL_INTERVAL seconds) and notifies connected clients when the device list changes.

It also ships MCP prompts — ready-made workflows you can invoke from clients that support them (e.g. as slash commands in Claude Code):

• check-windows — are any windows or doors open?
• room-status — full status report for one room
• set-heating — set a room's target temperature
• good-night — prepare the house for night
• diagnostics — check for device issues
• device-info — detailed info about a device's capabilities and parameters

How it works

The server talks to the CCU's JSON-RPC API (the same one the WebUI uses). On startup it:

1. Logs in and caches the session (reused across restarts)
2. Loads the device type cache from disk (or warms it in the background)
3. Starts the MCP server on stdio or HTTP

Device type schemas are cached locally so the AI can look up valid parameters, types, and value ranges without hitting the CCU every time.

Values come back as native types — 21.5 not "21.500000", true not "true".

Tested devices

This has been tested against a production debmatic installation with:

• HmIP-eTRV-2 / eTRV-2 I9F (radiator thermostats)
• HmIP-STHD (wall thermostats with humidity)
• HmIP-WTH-2 (wall thermostats)
• HmIP-SWDO-I (door/window contacts)
• HmIP-STHO (outdoor temperature/humidity)
• HmIP-ESI (energy/gas meter)
• HmIP-FALMOT-C12 (floor heating controller)
• HmIP-HEATING (virtual heating groups)
• HmIP-WRCC2 (wall remote)
• HM-PB-6-WM55 (BidCos 6-button remote)
• RPI-RF-MOD (radio module)

Other device types should work too — the server queries the CCU for parameter descriptions rather than maintaining a static device database.

Related projects

• OpenCCU — community-maintained, cloud-free CCU firmware for Raspberry Pi, x86/ARM, and CCU3/ELV-Charly hardware (formerly RaspberryMatic; built on the OCCU framework)
• debmatic — Run HomeMatic on Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS, Armbian
• OCCU — eQ-3's original Open CCU SDK (the upstream HomeMatic software); now being superseded by the community-maintained OpenCCU
• MCP — Model Context Protocol specification

License

MIT