bamboohr-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server that connects Claude to BambooHR. Install once, then talk to your HR data in plain English — no dashboards, no manual exports.

"Who's out next week?"
"Onboard Sarah Chen starting Monday — Engineering, reports to Maria."
"Show training compliance for the Sales team."
"Approve all pending PTO requests for my team."
"What's our average time-to-fill for engineering roles?"

What's included

Quickstart

Step 1 — Get your BambooHR API key

1. Log in to BambooHR
2. Click your profile icon (top right) > API Keys
3. Click Add New Key, name it, and copy it

Your subdomain is the prefix in your BambooHR URL — e.g. acme from acme.bamboohr.com.

Step 2 — Add to Claude Desktop

Edit your config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bamboohr": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "bamboohr-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "BAMBOOHR_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
        "BAMBOOHR_SUBDOMAIN": "your-company-subdomain"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop.

Step 3 — Or add to Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add bamboohr \
  -e BAMBOOHR_API_KEY=your-api-key-here \
  -e BAMBOOHR_SUBDOMAIN=your-company-subdomain \
  -- npx -y bamboohr-mcp

Step 4 — Verify

Open Claude and ask: "Show me the BambooHR employee directory"

Available Tools

Skills — Role-Based Workflows

Skills are pre-built prompts that handle common HR workflows end-to-end. Copy them to ~/.claude/skills/ to use them in Claude Code.

# Install all skills at once
cp -r skills/* ~/.claude/skills/

🗂️ HR Admin

For the people running day-to-day HR operations.

📈 HR Manager / HRBP

For strategic HR visibility, analytics, and reporting.

🎯 Recruiter / Talent Acquisition

For managing job openings, candidates, and hiring pipelines.

👔 Manager / Team Lead

For team-level visibility and day-to-day approvals.

🙋 Employee Self-Service

For employees managing their own HR needs.

💼 Payroll & Benefits Admin

For managing benefits enrollment and compensation data.

🎓 Training & L&D

For tracking learning programs and compliance.

⚡ Automation Admin

For teams integrating BambooHR with other systems via webhooks.

Development

git clone https://github.com/acalder-techpm/bamboohr-mcp
cd bamboohr-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Test locally:

export BAMBOOHR_API_KEY=your-key
export BAMBOOHR_SUBDOMAIN=your-subdomain
node dist/index.js

Interactive testing with MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

Authentication

BambooHR uses HTTP Basic Auth with your API key as the username. This server handles it automatically — just set BAMBOOHR_API_KEY.

Tip: API keys inherit the permissions of the user who created them. Use an Admin user's key for full access, or a limited user's key for read-only integrations.

To create a key: BambooHR > Profile icon > API Keys > Add New Key

Contributing

PRs welcome. If you add a new tool or skill, follow the existing patterns in src/tools/ and skills/ and open a pull request with a brief description of the use case.

License

MIT — made with ☕ and Claude.