Kia Access MCP

A Model Context Protocol server that connects Claude to your own Kia vehicle through the Kia Owners API the Kia Access mobile app uses: vehicle status, location, odometer, EV charge state, and confirm-gated door, climate, and charging commands.

[!WARNING] AI-developed project. This codebase was built and is maintained by Claude Code. No human has audited the implementation. Review the code and the tool permissions before pointing it at a real car.

[!CAUTION] This server can move a two-tonne object and can unlock your car. Every command tool is confirm-gated — without confirm: true it makes no network call at all and returns a dry-run preview — and door lock/unlock is not even registered unless you opt in with KIA_WRITE_MODE=all. Read Vehicle commands before changing that.

What you can do

Ask Claude things like:

• "Is the EV9 locked, and what's the charge at?"
• "Warm the car up to 72 for ten minutes"
• "Where did I leave the car?"
• "Refresh the car's status, then tell me the odometer"

Requirements

• Node.js 22.5 or later
• A Kia Owners / Kia Access account with an enrolled vehicle, and its password
• A phone or mailbox you can read once, for the one-time MFA passcode

Acknowledgement of terms

By using this server you accept that:

1. It uses your own Kia account credentials to talk to the same private API the Kia Access app uses. It cannot reach anyone else's vehicle or account.
2. Kia's terms govern your use of it, exactly as they govern your use of the app. This is not an official or supported integration and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Kia.
3. Commands act on a real vehicle in the physical world. Unlocking leaves the car unsecured until someone locks it; climate preconditioning runs the HVAC and draws power. You are responsible for every command you confirm.
4. Failed logins have a permanent cost. Kia counts them (loginAttempt) and eventually sets enforceRecaptcha, after which server-side login for that account is impossible. This server therefore never retries a rejected credential — see If login fails.

Installation

1. Clone and build

git clone https://github.com/chrischall/kiaaccess-mcp.git
cd kiaaccess-mcp
npm install
npm run build

2. Configure credentials

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env: KIA_USERNAME, KIA_PASSWORD (and optionally KIA_WRITE_MODE,
#            KIA_DEVICE_ID, KIA_RMTOKEN — see .env.example)

.env is gitignored. The server never logs credentials, and no tool ever returns your password.

3. Register with Claude Code

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kiaaccess": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "kiaaccess-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "KIA_USERNAME": "you@example.com",
        "KIA_PASSWORD": "your-password",
        "KIA_WRITE_MODE": "comfort"
      }
    }
  }
}

Missing credentials do not stop the server from booting — it starts, answers tools/list, and only reports the configuration error when a tool actually needs to call Kia. Run kia_session_status to see what it thinks it has.

The one-time MFA bootstrap

Kia challenges every new device with a one-time passcode. This server bootstraps once, stores the resulting remember-me token (rmtoken) under ~/.kiaaccess-mcp/session.json, and from then on mints fresh sessions silently — Kia does not rotate the token and does not challenge again.

Run it through Claude, in this order:

1. kia_session_status — confirms credentials are present. If it reports hasSession: false, continue.
2. kia_start_login (needs confirm: true) — sends your credentials, returns an otpKey and an xid, plus the masked phone/email Kia has on file.
3. kia_send_otp — pick SMS or EMAIL. The passcode expires in about two minutes.
4. kia_verify_otp — hand it the passcode. The token is stored locally and is deliberately not returned.
5. kia_list_vehicles — confirms the session works and gives you the vehicleKey every other tool takes.

To start over (revoked token, changed password, handing the machine on), run kia_forget_session with confirm: true and repeat from step 2.

Running it somewhere with no phone to read

The bootstrap needs a human once. A deployment that has no one to read an OTP — a remote host — cannot run it at all, so bootstrap on a machine that can and move the token:

1. Set KIA_DEVICE_ID to a fixed uuid before the bootstrap, on both machines. The rmtoken is minted against a device uuid and is worthless with a different one, and kia_session_status only ever reports a truncated prefix — so if you let it be generated, you cannot read back the value you need.
2. Bootstrap as above, then run kia_export_refresh_token with confirm: true.
3. Give the remote deployment that value as KIA_RMTOKEN, alongside KIA_USERNAME, KIA_PASSWORD and the same KIA_DEVICE_ID.

KIA_RMTOKEN takes precedence over anything in the local session store, so the deployment's session is whatever you handed it rather than whatever it last wrote. Treat the value like the password it stands in for: it bypasses MFA, and with the account password it grants full control of the vehicle.

If login fails

Do not retry. Kia increments loginAttempt on every rejection and eventually sets enforceRecaptcha, which breaks server-side login for that account permanently. Verify the email and password in the Kia Access app first, fix .env, restart, and only then try again.

Vehicle commands

KIA_WRITE_MODE decides which command tools are registered at all. This is a structural gate, not a runtime check: a tool that was never registered cannot be invoked by any host permission setting or by an instruction injected into the conversation.

KIA_WRITE_MODE	Registers
none	Nothing but the read tools and the account tools
comfort (default)	Climate start/stop and the charging commands
all	Also kia_lock_doors and kia_unlock_doors

An unrecognised value fails closed to none and warns on stderr — a typo must never silently grant the ability to unlock a car.

Two more rules hold for every command:

• Confirm-gated. Without confirm: true there is no network call at all, just a preview of the exact request that would be sent.
• Accepted is not confirmed. Kia answering "success" only means the request was accepted. The only proof a command took effect is re-reading the vehicle and diffing the field, so results report commandAccepted and stateConfirmed separately. Observed changes took 30–60 seconds.

Tools

Account and session

Tool	Notes
kia_session_status	Configured? Bootstrapped? Which write mode? No network call, no secrets — the email is masked and the device id truncated.
kia_start_login	Step 1 of the MFA bootstrap. Confirm-gated, because a rejection has a permanent cost.
kia_send_otp	Step 2 — delivers the passcode by SMS or EMAIL.
kia_verify_otp	Step 3 — exchanges the passcode for a stored session. Returns no secret.
kia_forget_session	Discards the stored token so the bootstrap can be re-run. Local only; confirm-gated.
kia_export_refresh_token	Returns the rmtoken in plaintext — a full MFA bypass. Exists only to move a locally-bootstrapped session into a deployment that cannot run the bootstrap itself, via KIA_RMTOKEN. Confirm-gated.

Reads

Tool	Notes
kia_list_vehicles	Every enrolled vehicle with its vehicleKey, nickname, model, mileage. VINs are masked to the last 6 characters.
kia_vehicle_status	Cached status: door lock, ignition (ign3 — on an EV engine stays false), the nested climate block, and more with include_raw. Fast, but only as fresh as the last upload.
kia_refresh_status	Wakes the telematics unit for a fresh reading. Slower, draws a little power, and returns no data itself — read kia_vehicle_status afterwards.
kia_vehicle_location	Last reported position plus a map link. Not a live GPS fix.
kia_charge_targets	Target state of charge per plug type.

Commands

Tool	Mode	Notes
kia_start_climate	comfort	Preconditioning. Temperature is best-effort: the car may report its own last-set target instead of the one requested.
kia_stop_climate	comfort	Verified by re-reading climate.airCtrl.
kia_start_charge	comfort	Verified. Needs the car plugged in — unplugged, Kia accepts the request and nothing happens. Confirm via evStatus.batteryCharge.
kia_stop_charge	comfort	Verified. Confirm via evStatus.batteryCharge.
kia_set_charge_limits	comfort	Verified, and re-read against evc/gts afterwards. Send both plug types — the list replaces the stored one.
kia_lock_doors	all	Verified by re-reading doorLock.
kia_unlock_doors	all	Leaves the car physically unsecured. Only run it when the user explicitly asked.

Every endpoint here was verified live against a 2024 EV9 — the reads and the four door/climate commands on 2026-07-27, and the three evc/* charging commands on 2026-07-28 against a plugged-in car. Each was proven by re-reading state, never by the success status: Kia answers statusCode: 0 the moment it accepts a command, seconds before the car acts, and on an unplugged car it answers success and does nothing at all. Every command result therefore reports "accepted" and "confirmed" separately. The full protocol write-up is in docs/KIA-API.md.

Development

npm test              # unit tests (no network — fetch is mocked throughout)
npm run test:coverage # the same, with the enforced 100% thresholds
npm run build         # tsc + esbuild bundle

License

MIT