mcp-context-card

# mcp-context-card

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**Get one. Or add it to yours.** The essential MCP server for a project's
context, memory, and identity — discoverable to any MCP client, and
rendered as one card you can read.

| Light | Dark |
|---|---|
| ![the context card, light theme](./docs/img/card-light.png) | ![the context card, dark theme](./docs/img/card-dark.png) |

**context** — the project's `AGENTS.md`, served whole or one section at a time.

![the card's context section — AGENTS.md, section nav, read_agents_md](./docs/img/card-context.png)

**memory** — facts that persist across sessions, in a file.

![the card's memory section — a real, tagged, verified fact](./docs/img/card-memory.png)

**identity** — what this server is, from its own Server Card.

![the card's identity — name and pills](./docs/img/card-identity.png)

Discovery goes through two surfaces already in the ecosystem: the Server Card
`_meta` block and `ai-catalog.json` sibling entries.

## Pick one

| You want to… | |
|---|---|
| **Add an `AGENTS.md`** — you don't have one | `author_agents_md` drafts one from your repo's real facts |
| **Improve an `AGENTS.md`** — you have one, make it the best it can be | the same tool, automatically — drop in a `project.faf` and it upgrades to BEST: goal, who it's for, why |
| **Get a new MCP server base** — context, memory, identity, wired | stand this up as-is; a host has all three before you write a tool of your own |
| **Improve your MCP with context, memory, ID** — you already run one | run it alongside your existing server; nothing to migrate, it composes |

## A base MCP — or an extension for any other

Context, memory, and identity are essential — every MCP host needs an agent
that knows a project's instructions, remembers facts across sessions, and can
say what it is. `mcp-context-card` is those three, done once:

- **Stand it up as your base MCP.** Point a host at it and an agent already
  has `AGENTS.md` served section‑by‑section, `remember` / `recall` / `forget`
  memory that survives a restart, and a `whoami` identity — before a single
  tool of your own is written.
- **Or extend any existing MCP with it.** Run it alongside a server you
  already have — filesystem, git, a database, your own — and that agent
  gains context, memory, and identity discovery it didn't have. Nothing to
  migrate; it composes.

Nine tools, two discovery surfaces already in the ecosystem (Server Card
`_meta`, `ai-catalog.json`), and a rendered [card](#the-card). MIT, on npm.

It composes:

- **serve · discover · render** — this server
- **author BETTER, keep true** — [`agents-md-facts`](https://github.com/Wolfe-Jam/agents-md-facts) (`author_agents_md` wraps it for the facts layer; adds a BEST layer of its own from `project.faf` when one exists)
- **files · shell · git** — [`server-filesystem`](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers), [`server-git`](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers) / github‑mcp‑server, your test runner's MCP

Vendor-free — context is plain Markdown (`AGENTS.md`); the memory and
identity formats are swappable examples. It reads and writes only its own
three files (`AGENTS.md`, `project.fafm`, `.well-known/fafa`) — no general
file access, no shell, no search.

## The card

The screenshot at the top of this page is exactly this — the same three
sources rendered as one self‑contained HTML page: identity, `AGENTS.md`,
memory, and how a machine fetches it. The view for people: read it, screenshot
it, drop it in a PR, put it on a status page.

`AGENTS.md` sections are collapsed by default, so the card scans in one screen;
a sticky index jumps to any section, **Expand all** opens everything. Sections
toggle natively — the one small inline script only adds the bulk button and the
print handler. `--expanded` / `?expand=all` renders it fully open, script-free,
for a screenshot.

```
npx mcp-context-card card            # at a terminal: writes context-card.html and opens it
npx mcp-context-card card --expanded # every section open
npx mcp-context-card card > x.html   # piped/redirected: raw HTML to stdout
GET /card                            # live, on the HTTP transport
GET /card?expand=all&theme=light&accent=%230066cc
```

Light, dark, or auto; the accent defaults to the AAIF palette and takes any hex.
This repo's own card, live: [auto](https://wolfe-jam.github.io/mcp-context-card/) ·
[light](https://wolfe-jam.github.io/mcp-context-card/card-light.html) ·
[dark](https://wolfe-jam.github.io/mcp-context-card/card-dark.html)
(all in the AAIF accent shown here — pass any hex to change it).

## Add it to your setup

### No `AGENTS.md` yet?

The `author_agents_md` tool authors one — **BETTER** from your repo's real
facts (build/test commands, entry points, toolchain conventions, via
[`agents-md-facts`](https://github.com/Wolfe-Jam/agents-md-facts)), or
**BEST** when a `project.faf` exists: the same facts, plus its structured
goal, who it's for, and why, as a section ahead of them. Nothing to
configure — the tier follows what's actually there.
([The ladder this follows.](https://github.com/Wolfe-Jam/agents-md-facts/blob/main/docs/BETTER-BEST.md))

To author or keep the facts layer true outside a session:

```bash
npx agents-md-facts          # author / refresh AGENTS.md
npx agents-md-facts --check  # fail if missing or stale (CI, pre-commit)
```

### See the card

One command, no host, no config — from your project directory:

```bash
npx mcp-context-card card
```

At a terminal it writes `context-card.html` and opens it in your browser. Piped
or redirected (`> card.html`, a script, CI) it writes raw HTML to stdout instead;
`--stdout` forces that from a terminal too. `--expanded` opens every section.

### Wire it into a host

Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any stdio host:

```jsonc
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "context-card": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-context-card"],
      "env": { "MCP_CONTEXT_CARD_ROOT": "/abs/path/to/your/project" }
    }
  }
}
```

`MCP_CONTEXT_CARD_ROOT` points at the directory with your `AGENTS.md`. The
memory tools work with or without it; identity is optional. Over HTTP instead:
`PORT=8080 npx mcp-context-card`. Requires Node ≥20.

If `command: "npx"` fails to spawn (`spawn npx ENOENT` — seen on Cursor, whose
host process doesn't inherit a shell `PATH`), point `command` at `node` and
the installed `dist/bin.js` instead — see
[docs/WIRING.md](./docs/WIRING.md#1-running-it-in-a-host). Transport choice is
in [docs/TRANSPORT.md](./docs/TRANSPORT.md).

Extending an MCP you already run: most hosts accept more than one
`mcpServers` entry — add `context-card` alongside `server-filesystem`,
`server-git`, or your own, and every agent in that host gains context,
memory, and identity discovery without anything else changing.

## Why

`AGENTS.md` is the de-facto standard for telling a coding agent how to work in a
repo. But a client has to *know the file exists* and read the whole thing into
context. There is no standard way for a server to say "here is my AGENTS.md,
here is what I remember, here is who I am" — so every server that wants this
grows its own shape.

`mcp-context-card` answers all three through mechanisms that already exist:

1. **Server Card `_meta`** ([SEP‑2127](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol/pull/2127)) —
   one reverse‑DNS‑namespaced key per concern, readable in‑band as an MCP
   resource and at `GET /.well-known/mcp/server-card`.
2. **`ai-catalog.json`** — sibling entries keyed by media type, at
   `GET /.well-known/ai-catalog.json`.

The context concern points at `AGENTS.md` (`text/markdown`). Memory and identity
have no de‑facto standard yet, so the examples here use
[`.fafm`](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20348942) and
[`.fafa`](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21951641) — one instantiation each,
swap in your own.

The wire‑level detail is in [docs/MECHANISMS.md](./docs/MECHANISMS.md).

## Tools

| Tool | What it's for |
|---|---|
| `author_agents_md` | draft an `AGENTS.md` — BETTER from the repo's facts (via `agents-md-facts`), BEST when a `project.faf` exists — ready to drop in |
| `read_agents_md` | return the project's `AGENTS.md` — whole, or one section by heading |
| `list_agents_md_sections` | the headings, so a client pulls one section instead of the whole file |
| `remember` | write a fact that will still be there next session |
| `recall` | read a fact stored in a previous session |
| `forget` | drop or correct a stale fact |
| `whoami` | this server's name, vendor, version, status, license |
| `list_context_sources` | what this project publishes, in what media types, via which surface |
| `render_context_card` | the whole card as one self‑contained HTML page (also `GET /card`) |

## The demo

`npm run demo` runs every tool over both transports:

1. **Context** — list the `AGENTS.md` sections, then pull just `## Test`.
2. **Memory** — `remember()` a fact, stop the server process, start a new one,
   `recall()` the same fact. Only the file carries it across.
3. **Identity** — `whoami()`, and the Server Card `_meta` block read back from a
   live client.
4. **Discovery** — `list_context_sources()`, then the same server over stateless
   HTTP with its `.well-known` routes and `GET /card`.

104 tests on Linux, macOS, and Windows, coverage‑gated in CI. Two spawn a real
child process and check a remembered fact survives the restart — one against
an existing `project.fafm`, one starting from a project that has never had
one; a