ZenControl TPI MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for controlling ZenControl DALI-2 lighting systems via the ZenControl Third-Party Interface (TPI) — a direct LAN protocol that communicates with ZenControl Pro-series controllers without going through the cloud.

Features

• DALI lighting commands: arc level, scenes, on/off, step up/down, custom fade
• DALI colour control: Tc (colour temperature), XY chromaticity, RGBWAF
• DMX channel commands with pattern and fade support
• Device and group discovery with labels
• Scene discovery and management
• Controller profile management
• DALI instance and virtual instance support
• Occupancy sensor timer queries
• System variable read/write
• Scope constraint to lock the server to a specific DALI group

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• A ZenControl Pro-series controller with TPI Advanced licence
• Network access to the controller (LAN or VLAN)

Installation

uv add zencontrol-tpi-mcp

Or for development:

git clone https://github.com/oWretch/zencontrol-tpi-mcp
cd zencontrol-tpi-mcp
uv sync

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env and set your controller address:

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env:

ZENCONTROL_TPI_HOST=192.168.1.100
ZENCONTROL_TPI_PORT=5108        # optional, default: 5108
ZENCONTROL_SCOPE_GROUP=0        # optional, lock to DALI group 0

No API key is required — the TPI protocol has no authentication mechanism; access control is provided at the network level.

Usage

stdio (for Claude Desktop, VS Code, etc.)

uv run zencontrol-tpi-mcp

Debug mode

uv run zencontrol-tpi-mcp --log-level DEBUG

VS Code

See .vscode/mcp.json for VS Code MCP configuration.

Protocol

This server uses TPI Advanced, a binary UDP/TCP protocol on port 5108. All commands use TCP for reliable, ordered delivery.

See the TPI documentation for protocol details.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Apache-2.0