---
id: arcade-serve
version: "3.4.2"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# arcade-serve — Arcade Serve - Serving infrastructure for Arcade tools and workers

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 394.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Arcade Serve is a hosting framework built on FastAPI and the Model Context Protocol that lets you run Arcade tools as networked services. It handles the plumbing: worker lifecycle, toolkit registration, authentication, and observability through OpenTelemetry. The package exposes tools via HTTP (FastAPI) or stdio (MCP), complete with request tracing and monitoring hooks.

The package is designed for developers building tool-serving infrastructure—either standalone FastAPI applications or MCP servers that integrate with language models. It abstracts away the common patterns of authentication, toolkit loading, and runtime management, letting you focus on which tools to expose and how to configure them.

Use it for:

- Host Arcade tools as a FastAPI microservice with secret-based authentication.
- Expose tools via Model Context Protocol for integration with language model clients.
- Build a multi-worker deployment where different workers host different tool subsets.
- Add observability to tool execution by leveraging built-in OpenTelemetry instrumentation.
- Manage tool lifecycle and registration without writing boilerplate authentication or routing code.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Arcade Serve provides FastAPI and Model Context Protocol server infrastructure for hosting Arcade tools and workers with built-in authentication, observability, and toolkit registration.

Yes, if you are building or deploying Arcade tools as services. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and eliminates boilerplate for FastAPI and MCP hosting. Install it when you need to expose toolkits over HTTP or MCP; skip it if you are only using tools locally or in a single-process context.

## Install

pip install arcade-serve
uv add arcade-serve
poetry add arcade-serve

## Installing arcade-serve

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel. Marked active with a release 1 day old. Depends on FastAPI, uvicorn, aiohttp, and OpenTelemetry instrumentation packages—all stable, widely-used libraries.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive). You can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial or private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install arcade-serve

from fastapi import FastAPI
from arcade_serve.fastapi import FastAPIWorker

app = FastAPI()
worker = FastAPIWorker(app, secret=os.environ.get("ARCADE_WORKER_SECRET"))
worker.register_toolkit(...)

Requires Python 3.10 or later. Expects ARCADE_WORKER_SECRET environment variable for worker authentication.

Verify before relying:

- Whether OpenTelemetry instrumentation is automatically active or requires explicit configuration.
- Performance characteristics and throughput limits for concurrent tool execution.
- Compatibility with custom authentication schemes beyond environment-variable-based secrets.
- How toolkit registration works and what toolkit objects the register_toolkit method accepts.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 394.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

fastapi worker framework, model context protocol server, arcade tools hosting, tool serving infrastructure, mcp server implementation, fastapi toolkit registration, worker authentication framework, fastapi, mcp-server, observability

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/arcade-serve) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/arcade-serve/)