How do I get a Cohere API Key?

Log in to the [**Cohere Dashboard**](https://dashboard.cohere.com/api-keys), go to **API Keys** and click **Create API Key**. Copy the key immediately — it starts with a random string and won't be shown again. Free tier includes trial access with rate limits.

What models are available?

Use the `list_models` tool to see all available Cohere models. Key models include command-r-plus (most capable, 128K context), command-r (efficient, 128K context), command-r7b (lightweight, 128K context), embed-v4 (embeddings) and rerank-v3.5 (reranking).

Can I send multi-turn conversations?

Yes! Pass a messages array with alternating 'user', 'assistant' and 'system' roles. Each message has a 'role' and 'content' field. Command models support function calling and will return tool_calls when appropriate.

What is reranking and when should I use it?

Reranking reorders a set of documents by their relevance to a query. Use it after an initial search to improve result quality. The rerank tool takes a query, list of documents and returns them ranked by relevance score. Cohere's rerank models are industry-leading for search applications.

Cohere MCP Server for Claude Code 6 tools — connect in under 2 minutes

Name: Cohere
Availability: InStock
Author: Vinkius

docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code

Built by Vinkius GDPR 6 Tools CLI

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic CLI for terminal-first development. Add Cohere as an MCP server in one command and Claude Code will discover every tool at runtime. ideal for automation pipelines, CI/CD integration, and headless workflows via Vinkius.

Get MCP Server for AI Agents

ASK AI ABOUT THIS MCP SERVER

Open in ChatGPT Open in Claude Open in Perplexity

Vinkius supports streamable HTTP and SSE.

RecommendedModern Approach — Zero Configuration

Vinkius Desktop App

The modern way to manage MCP Servers — no config files, no terminal commands. Install Cohere and 2,500+ MCP Servers from a single visual interface.

Download Free Open SourceNo signup required

Classic Setup·bash

# Your Vinkius token. get it at cloud.vinkius.com
claude mcp add cohere --transport http "https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp"

Fully ManagedVinkius Servers

60%Token savings

High SecurityEnterprise-grade

IAMAccess control

EU AI ActCompliant

DLPData protection

V8 IsolateSandboxed

Ed25519Audit chain

<40msKill switch

Stream every event to Splunk, Datadog, or your own webhook in real-time

* Every MCP server runs on Vinkius-managed infrastructure inside AWS - a purpose-built runtime with per-request V8 isolates, Ed25519 signed audit chains, and sub-40ms cold starts optimized for native MCP execution. See our infrastructure

About Cohere MCP Server

Connect your Cohere account to any AI agent and leverage enterprise-grade AI models through natural conversation.

Claude Code registers Cohere as an MCP server in a single terminal command. Once connected, Claude Code discovers all 6 tools at runtime and can call them headlessly. ideal for CI/CD pipelines, cron jobs, and automated workflows where Cohere data drives decisions without human intervention.

What you can do

Model Discovery — List all available Cohere models with their names, capabilities and context lengths
Chat API — Send conversations to Command models (command-r-plus, command-r, command-r7b) and receive responses with citations and tool call support
Embeddings — Generate vector embeddings for semantic search with multiple embedding types (float, int8, uint8, binary)
Reranking — Rerank documents by relevance to a search query using Cohere's industry-leading reranking models
Tokenization — Tokenize and detokenize text for estimating token counts and debugging

The Cohere MCP Server exposes 6 tools through the Vinkius. Connect it to Claude Code in under two minutes — no API keys to rotate, no infrastructure to provision, no vendor lock-in. Your configuration, your data, your control.

How to Connect Cohere to Claude Code via MCP

Follow these steps to integrate the Cohere MCP Server with Claude Code.

Install Claude Code

Run npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code if not already installed

Add the MCP Server

Run the command above in your terminal

Verify the connection

Run claude mcp to list connected servers, or type /mcp inside a session

Start using Cohere

Ask Claude: "Using Cohere, show me...". 6 tools are ready

Why Use Claude Code with the Cohere MCP Server

Claude Code provides unique advantages when paired with Cohere through the Model Context Protocol.

Single-command setup: `claude mcp add` registers the server instantly. no config files to edit or applications to restart

Terminal-native workflow means MCP tools integrate seamlessly into shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and automated DevOps tasks

Claude Code runs headlessly, enabling unattended batch processing using Cohere tools in cron jobs or deployment scripts

Built by the same team that created the MCP protocol, ensuring first-class compatibility and the fastest adoption of new protocol features

Cohere + Claude Code Use Cases

Practical scenarios where Claude Code combined with the Cohere MCP Server delivers measurable value.

CI/CD integration: embed Cohere tool calls in your deployment pipeline to validate configurations or fetch secrets before shipping

Headless batch processing: schedule Claude Code to query Cohere nightly and generate reports without human intervention

Shell scripting: pipe Cohere outputs into other CLI tools for data transformation, filtering, and aggregation

Infrastructure monitoring: run Claude Code in a cron job to query Cohere status endpoints and alert on anomalies

Cohere MCP Tools for Claude Code (6)

These 6 tools become available when you connect Cohere to Claude Code via MCP:

chat

Requires the model ID (e.g. "command-r-plus", "command-r", "command-r7b") and messages array in JSON format. Each message must have a "role" ("user", "assistant", "system" or "tool") and "content" (text or array of content blocks). Optionally set max_tokens, temperature (0-1), p (nucleus sampling 0-1) and tools array for function calling. Returns the model's response with text, citations and tool calls. Send a chat message to a Cohere model

detokenize

Requires the token IDs array. Returns the reconstructed text. Useful for debugging and verifying tokenization. Detokenize token IDs back to text using Cohere

embed

Requires the model ID (e.g. "embed-v4", "embed-v3"), texts array and input_type ("search_document", "search_query", "classification", "clustering"). Returns embedding vectors for each input text. Useful for semantic search, similarity comparison and vector database storage. Generate embeddings using Cohere

list_models

Each model returns its name (e.g. "command-r-plus", "command-r", "embed-v4", "rerank-v3.5"), endpoint compatibility, context length and tokenization info. Use this to discover which models are available and their capabilities. List all available Cohere models

rerank

Requires the model ID (e.g. "rerank-v3.5", "rerank-english-v3.0"), query text and documents array. Optionally set top_n to return only the top N results. Returns ranked documents with relevance scores. Rerank documents by relevance to a query

tokenize

Requires the text to tokenize and optionally the model. Returns the list of token IDs and token strings. Useful for estimating token counts before sending to chat or embed endpoints. Tokenize text using Cohere

Example Prompts for Cohere in Claude Code

Ready-to-use prompts you can give your Claude Code agent to start working with Cohere immediately.

"Send a message to Command R+ asking 'What is the capital of Brazil?'"

"Rerank these documents for the query 'machine learning models': ['Neural networks are inspired by biological neurons.', 'Python is a popular programming language.', 'Transformers use attention mechanisms for sequence processing.']"

"Generate embeddings for these texts: ['The weather is nice today.', 'I love programming in Python.'] using embed-v4."