Best Steam MCP servers for Cursor in 2026

The best Steam MCP for live most-played charts in Cursor is Trends MCP. It exposes the case-sensitive get_top_trends type Steam Most Played and the keyword source steam for monthly concurrent-player history, over hosted HTTP. Valve publishes no official Steam MCP. Store pages, reviews, wishlists, friends, and publisher writes belong on a local Steam Web API wrapper: Sarg338 steam-mcp 1.19.0 on PyPI (41 tools), Grinv steam-games-mcp 0.15.0 (26 tools, including get_charts for a live concurrent top 100), or TMHSDigital @tmhs/steam-mcp 0.9.0 (the only npm server in this set with Partner write tools). Pick by job, not by tool count.

Which Steam MCP belongs on a live most-played board?

Trends MCP is the only hosted option in this roundup that treats Steam as a ranked live feed plus a multi-year concurrent-player series. The live board is get_top_trends with type Steam Most Played (exact spelling). The history call is get_growth or get_time_series with source steam and a game display name such as Elden Ring; llms.txt (Last updated 2026-10-18) says the first Steam store search result wins, so an ambiguous title is the wrong keyword.

Default limit is 25, max 200. Free plan boards return the top 10 only, and offset stays pinned at 0 on Free. sort is rank or rank_change (window 1d, 3d, 7d, 14d, or 30d). country is documented for Google Trends, YouTube Trending, TikTok hashtag boards, and X (Twitter) Trending only. Steam Most Played has no country switch.

That job stops at charts and history. Trends MCP does not return a store page, a review body, a wishlist, a friend list, or a Partner write. For the paste-ready Cursor block and the board vs keyword split, see the Steam trends in Cursor page and the Steam Most Played API reference.

llms.txt lists 16 keyword sources (including steam and python) and 24 live feed names, keeping the four category boards (Google Trends by Category, TikTok Trending Hashtags by Category, Amazon Best Sellers by Category, Substack by Category). The homepage live-feed table and data-sources.md, fetched the same day, print 20 rows and drop those four. Homepage hero copy says 35+ platforms. The pricing HTML heading says 30+. The pricing FAQ and the homepage FAQ both say 40+. Do not flatten those counts.

The live MCP descriptor this run also lists get_top_posts (sources tiktok and instagram, default and max 20). llms.txt and docs.md still describe three tools and omit that mode. get_top_posts does not accept Steam.

What a Steam Web API MCP can return that Trends MCP cannot

A local Steam Web API MCP reads store.steampowered.com and api.steampowered.com for one game or one Steam account. It answers "how many people are in Counter-Strike 2 right now," "is this title on sale," "what does the Deck report say," or "which friends own this appid." It does not keep a hosted Steam Most Played board or a monthly steam series that sits next to Google, YouTube, and TikTok on the same key.

Valve's partner documentation (accessed 18 Oct 2026) puts the public host at api.steampowered.com and the publisher host at https://partner.steam-api.com. Many methods need a Web API key; storefront HTML endpoints used by these servers often do not. A free user key comes from steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey. The Steam Web API Terms of Use (last updated July 2010) cap calls at 100,000 per day, require a privacy policy for stored user data, and forbid sharing the key.

The community /dev page still opens by claiming the only APIs on offer provide item data for Team Fortress 2. That sentence is stale against the partner Web API overview on the same day. Cite the partner doc for interfaces, and the community form for the key.

None of these wrappers is an official Valve MCP. SteamDB is not in the set: Grinv's README states SteamDB has no public API and disallows scraping, and that Steam itself has no price-history API.

How Trends MCP is added in Cursor for Steam

llms.txt (Last updated 2026-10-18) is the Cursor block to paste. The homepage copy-config the same day omits transport and the Bearer prefix (Authorization: YOUR_API_KEY). Use the llms.txt shape:

"trends-mcp": {
  "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
  "transport": "http",
  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
}

File path: ~/.cursor/mcp.json on Mac/Linux, %USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json on Windows. Claude Code is a one-liner:

claude mcp add --transport http trends-mcp https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Claude.ai Connectors use OAuth against the www host /mcp path, not the api host; that connector takes no Bearer key. Setup walkthrough: MCP server for Cursor.

A Steam most-played pull looks like this (MCP tool get_top_trends, REST mode get_top_trends):

{"mode": "get_top_trends", "type": "Steam Most Played", "limit": 10}

A named-game history pull uses source steam, not the board type. Passing Steam Most Played into get_growth is invalid_source.

Markdown pricing.md (Last updated 2026-10-18): Free 100 requests at $0; Starter $19 / 1,000; Pro $49 / 5,000; Business $199 / 25,000; annual billing saves 20%. HTML yearly cards the same day show Starter $16 / $192 billed annually, Pro $39 / $468, Business $159 / $1,910. JSON-LD on /pricing lists monthly 0 / 19 / 49 / 199 only. HTML FAQ: one successful call equals one request, and the card is not charged until day 8. Plan-card fine print: "Card charged after day 7." docs.md / llms.txt: MCP get_top_trends costs 1 credit per 10 requested rows, max 10 credits per call; REST is 1 request per POST. Free boards lag 24 hours; Starter, Pro, and Business are real-time. History depth: Free 90 days, Starter 1 year, Pro 2+ years, Business the full archive.

Steam Web API MCPs in this post are free software plus a free Valve key. Trends MCP is the paid hosted chart layer.

Does Sarg338 steam-mcp beat steam-games-mcp for store work?

Sarg338 steam-mcp is the broader read-only Steam Web API server. PyPI reports version 1.19.0, wheel uploaded 2026-09-24, Python >=3.10, MIT, last-week downloads 317, last-month 1,504. The README counts 41 tools, 5 prompts, and 2 resources. It says 19 of the 41 tools work with no credential; the same page then says the three game-finders (steam_discover, steam_should_i_buy, steam_recommend) also run without a key unless they are personalized. Do not flatten 19 and 22. All 41 tools are annotated readOnlyHint: true. Full tool list is about 11.5k tokens; STEAM_MCP_TOOLS=essentials loads 15.

Cursor block from that README (accessed 18 Oct 2026):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steam": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["steam-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "STEAM_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY_HERE",
        "STEAM_USER": "your_steam_name"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code with no key, then with a Valve key and optional vanity name:

claude mcp add steam -- uvx steam-mcp
claude mcp add steam --env STEAM_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY --env STEAM_USER=your_steam_name -- uvx steam-mcp

Hosts are SSRF-guarded to api.steampowered.com, store.steampowered.com, and steamcommunity.com.

Grinv steam-games-mcp is the chart-aware npm alternative. npm 0.15.0, published 2026-10-04, MIT, weekly downloads 97, runtime Node ≥ 20.11. The README table lists 26 tools: 15 marked no key (including get_wishlist and get_followed_games) and 11 marked as needing STEAM_API_KEY. get_charts is the closest Web API analogue to Trends MCP's board: weekly top sellers, most played, and a live concurrent top 100 (ranks plus appids; price and reviews via get_items, which batches up to 50 appids). get_prices batches up to 250 appids. Three prompts: what_should_i_play, is_it_worth_buying, deals_digest.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steam": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "steam-games-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "STEAM_API_KEY": "your-steam-web-api-key",
        "STEAM_ID": "your-steamid64-or-vanity-name",
        "STEAM_COUNTRY": "US",
        "STEAM_LANGUAGE": "english"
      }
    }
  }
}

The npm README prints parenthetical hints inside those env values. Replace them with real strings. STEAM_COUNTRY and STEAM_LANGUAGE are optional store-region knobs; omit them if the default United States / english storefront is enough.

For one game's live player count, either wrapper is enough (steam_get_current_players vs get_current_players). For a ranked most-played list without hosting Trends MCP, Grinv's get_charts is the tool that claims that board. For library analysis, co-op planning, review-before-vs-after-patch, or Community Market prices, Sarg338's extra tools are the reason to take the 11.5k-token hit or to set STEAM_MCP_TOOLS.

When TMHSDigital is the Steam MCP to run

@tmhs/steam-mcp 0.9.0 (npm, last publish 2026-09-18, weekly downloads 14) is the publisher-side server. The README and the npm page both count 26 MCP tools: 19 read, 5 write, 2 SDK guides, split as 11 no-auth, 8 API-key, 5 HTTP writes plus 2 code-only guides. Node 20 or later. License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, so it is not MIT like the other two wrappers.

The five HTTP writes (steam_updateWorkshopItem, steam_setAchievement, steam_clearAchievement, steam_uploadLeaderboardScore, steam_grantInventoryItem) default to dry_run: true and require confirm: true before they POST to the Partner Web API. A live call without confirm returns an MCP error whose text starts with [CONFIRM_REQUIRED]. The two SDK guides (steam_createLobby, steam_uploadWorkshopItem) return C++/C#/GDScript samples and make no network call. Partner-admin tools (steam_partnerLogin, steam_uploadStoreImage, steam_uploadTrailer) are not in the npm tarball; they need STEAM_PARTNER_ADMIN=1 on a local checkout.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steam": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@tmhs/steam-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "STEAM_API_KEY": "your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Store lookups, steam_getPlayerCount, global achievement stats, news, reviews, and app search run with no key. User tools need STEAM_API_KEY. Writes need a publisher key with the server IP allowlisted in Steamworks. Companion Cursor plugin: TMHSDigital Steam Developer Tools (README: 30 skills and 9 rules). That plugin is not an MCP server.

Skip @praeses/steam-mcp 2.0.0 for this query. It is a local Steam-library manager (14 tools covering 66 actions, last npm publish 2026-03-23) that reads installed files and can install, launch, and verify games. That is a different product from a live most-played board. Skip rachittshah/steam-mcp too: its README still says a PyPI release is pending and the install command pulls the GitHub repo, which collides with Sarg338's published steam-mcp name.

What Valve's Web API terms actually cap

The Steam Web API Terms of Use (July 2010, accessed 18 Oct 2026) limit a key to 100,000 calls per day. They require a privacy policy for stored end-user Steam data, prohibit intercepting a Steam password, and prohibit presenting the data as Valve-endorsed. Valve may change or terminate the API. Trends MCP, Sarg338, Grinv, and TMHSDigital all state they are not affiliated with Valve. "Steam" is a Valve trademark.

A user key from the community form is enough for public player summaries and owned games on a public profile. Publisher methods on partner.steam-api.com need the publisher key on every request; the partner doc says a regular Web API key against that host returns 403 and then strict IP rate limits. TMHSDigital's write path is the only MCP in this roundup that aims at that host.

Trends MCP never sends a Valve key. Chart calls count against the Trends MCP monthly quota (markdown Free 100 / Starter 1,000 / Pro 5,000 / Business 25,000), not against Valve's 100,000/day cap.

FAQ

Does Valve ship an official Steam MCP server?

No public Valve MCP existed on 18 Oct 2026. The official surfaces are the Steamworks Web API (api.steampowered.com / partner.steam-api.com) and the storefront endpoints these community servers wrap. Cursor still needs a third-party MCP: Trends MCP for hosted charts, or one of the stdio wrappers for store and account calls.

Can Trends MCP read a Steam library or user reviews?

No. Source steam is monthly concurrent players for a game display name. Type Steam Most Played is the live concurrent board. Reviews, wishlists, friends, Deck reports, and Workshop items come from a Steam Web API MCP such as Sarg338 steam-mcp or Grinv steam-games-mcp.

Do the local Steam MCPs need a Web API key for player counts?

Sarg338, Grinv, and TMHSDigital all document current-player and most store tools as keyless. A free Steam Web API key is required for account tools (library, friends, per-player achievements). Grinv marks get_wishlist and get_followed_games as keyless on public profiles. TMHSDigital writes need a publisher key, not the community user key.

Which Cursor JSON is correct for Trends MCP?

llms.txt (Last updated 2026-10-18): url https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp, transport http, Authorization Bearer YOUR_API_KEY. The homepage copy-config the same day omits transport and the Bearer prefix. Paste the llms.txt object. Claude.ai Connectors use OAuth on the www host /mcp path and do not take a Bearer key.

Is a $0 Steam MCP enough if the job is trend research?

A local wrapper is enough for one appid's live player count, a store snapshot, or Grinv's get_charts top 100. It is not enough for a hosted Steam Most Played board with rank_change windows, pagination past Free's top 10, or a monthly steam series beside Google and TikTok. That combination is the Trends MCP job, starting at 100 free requests.

Sources (accessed 18 Oct 2026): Trends MCP llms.txt, homepage, pricing HTML, pricing.md, docs.md, data-sources.md; Steam Web API Terms of Use; Steamworks Web API overview; Steam Web API key form; PyPI steam-mcp 1.19.0; npm steam-games-mcp 0.15.0; npm @tmhs/steam-mcp 0.9.0; GitHub READMEs for Sarg338/steam-mcp, Grinv/steam-games-mcp, and TMHSDigital/steam-mcp.