Stock Photo MCP

Stock Photo MCP is a Model Context Protocol server that connects an AI design agent to commercial stock photo libraries. It works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and other MCP clients. The agent searches for photography by subject, picks a result, and places a watermarked preview into the design with its license link and the contributor credit attached. When the design is approved, a person licenses the image on the vendor's site and the watermark comes off.

The server gives the agent two tools. One searches and returns a single numbered contact sheet, so the agent compares the options as one image and picks by number, and the sheet is compressed to fit the output limits MCP clients enforce. The other fetches the full watermarked preview of the chosen result. Every search runs against the vendor's own API at request time on a Cloudflare Worker, so nothing is scraped, stored or re-hosted. The licensing rules are enforced by the server and not left to the agent: previews stay watermarked, attribution renders on every result, and editorial assets are excluded.

It exists because design agents can build a layout but can't generate licensable photography. Without a source of real photos they fall back on placeholders, emoji or drawn stand-ins, or someone leaves the workflow to find and license a photo by hand.

Shutterstock is the only library live so far, with an Adobe Stock adapter in development. Connecting and searching are free. Images are paid for on the vendor's site at the vendor's price, and Adpharm earns a commission through the affiliate link on each result.