Bling Bag — MCP Server for Bot Identity & Visual Styling

One identity, many surfaces. Give your AI agent a name, a personality, a look, and a quirky office-worker backstory it can present consistently across Claude Code, Claude Desktop, IDE plugins, terminals, web apps, Slack, and Discord.

Status: Working MVP. 5 MCP tools, 13 trait pools (465 weighted entries), full rarity engine. 94/94 tests passing.

What this MCP gives an agent

Five tools, grouped into two halves:

Identity & styling (read your configured bot)

• get_identity — returns the bot's full identity (name, personality, appearance, theme colours)
• get_theme_for_platform — returns platform-formatted styling (ANSI codes, CSS variables, Slack/Discord embed colours, etc.)

WOW — Weird Office Workers (random identity generator)

• roll_identity — rolls a fresh random office-worker character (one of 13 traits drawn from weighted pools, scored for rarity, framed in a screenshot-ready share card)
• get_rarity_report — returns the formatted share card (header + paragraph + footer) for the most-recent roll
• save_last_roll — persists the most-recent roll as the bot's permanent identity (bling.json), with automatic backup of any existing config

Install

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or later
• An MCP-compatible client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, etc.)

Add the package

npm install bling-bag

Or run it on-demand without installing — MCP clients can launch it directly via npx bling-bag (see client config below).

For development (modifying the source)

git clone https://github.com/tjclaude88/mcp-bling.git
cd mcp-bling
npm install
npm run build

Produces a runnable server at dist/index.js.

Wire it into your MCP client

The server uses stdio transport — clients launch it as a child process, not over a network port.

Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code MCP config (location varies by version):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bling": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "bling-bag"],
      "env": {
        "BLING_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/your/bling.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

npx -y bling-bag downloads and runs the latest version without requiring a separate install step.

Claude Desktop

Same shape, in claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bling": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "bling-bag"],
      "env": {
        "BLING_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/your/bling.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

Pinning to a version (recommended for production)

To avoid picking up future releases automatically, pin a specific version:

"args": ["-y", "[email protected]"]

Developer-mode invocation (from a local clone)

If you've cloned the repo and want to run from dist/ directly, use:

"command": "node",
"args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-bling/dist/index.js"]

If BLING_PATH is not set, the server looks for ./bling.json in its working directory.

Config resolution order

The server resolves the bling config path in this order:

1. --bling <path> CLI argument (highest priority)
2. BLING_PATH environment variable
3. ./bling.json in the server's working directory (default)

bling.json — the bot's identity file

Three fields are required: name, personality (with tone, formality, humor), and theme (with primary_color and accent_color as #RRGGBB hex strings).

Minimum example

{
  "name": "Pixel",
  "personality": {
    "tone": "warm",
    "formality": "casual",
    "humor": "playful"
  },
  "theme": {
    "primary_color": "#3A7BD5",
    "accent_color": "#FFD166"
  }
}

Full example (with all optional sections)

{
  "name": "Brenda from Accounts",
  "personality": {
    "tone": "polite",
    "formality": "professional",
    "humor": "dry",
    "catchphrase": "Per my last email"
  },
  "physical": {
    "species": "human",
    "height": "permanently mid-sigh",
    "accessory": "a lanyard with 14 badges of varying importance",
    "expression": "polite disappointment",
    "material": "a cardigan, at least one"
  },
  "office": {
    "job_title": "ASCII Comptroller",
    "desk_setup": "a coffee mug labelled WORLD'S OKAYEST DBA",
    "habit": "microwaves fish despite three separate HR warnings",
    "coffee_ritual": "black coffee, no nonsense",
    "meeting_energy": "always 4 minutes late, always with a reason",
    "passive_aggressive": "Per my last email"
  },
  "theme": {
    "primary_color": "#9C6B3A",
    "accent_color": "#D9D9D9"
  },
  "homunculus": {
    "subject_id": "0147",
    "cohort": "Tuesday",
    "classification": "Middle Manager",
    "ingested": "2025-07-14",
    "flag": "flagged for review"
  }
}

Validation rules

• name — non-empty string
• personality.tone, personality.formality, personality.humor — non-empty strings
• theme.primary_color, theme.accent_color — must match ^#[0-9A-Fa-f]{6}$ (no shorthand #RGB, no missing #)

Validation errors come back as isError: true with a structured { error: "..." } body that names the missing or malformed field — agents can self-correct.

Typical agent flows

Flow A — adopt the configured identity

1. Call get_identity → receive name, personality, appearance, theme
2. Call get_theme_for_platform with platform="terminal" (or web/slack/discord/ide)
3. Use the returned styling in agent output (ANSI codes for headings, etc.)

Flow B — generate a fresh random identity

1. Call roll_identity → receive identity + rarity + framed share card
2. (Optional) Call get_rarity_report → receive just the framed share card again
3. Call save_last_roll → persists the rolled identity to bling.json (with .bak backup of any prior config)
4. Future calls to get_identity now return the rolled identity

Tool reference

| Tool | Read/Write | Idempotent | Description | |------|------------|------------|-------------| | get_identity | read (disk) | yes | Returns the configured bling.json identity | | get_theme_for_platform | read (disk) | yes | Platform-formatted styling. Args: platform ∈ {terminal, web, slack, discord, ide} | | roll_identity | mutates in-memory cache | no | Generates a random WOW character with rarity scoring | | save_last_roll | write (disk) | no | Persists the most-recent roll to bling.json (creates <path>.bak first) | | get_rarity_report | read (in-memory) | yes | Returns the share-card text for the most-recent roll |

All tools return both content[].text (JSON-stringified) and structuredContent (the parsed object). Errors come back with isError: true and a { error: string } body.

WOW (Weird Office Workers) — what makes it interesting

The random-roll system is built for collectibility:

• 13 weighted pools, 465 entries — names, job titles, habits, coffee rituals, height, accessories, etc.
• 5 rarity bands per pool — Common (50%), Uncommon (30%), Rare (15%), Legendary (4%), Mythic (1%)
• 5 character tiers computed from rarity score:
  • Filing Clerk (50% of rolls)
  • Team Lead (30%)
  • Middle Manager (14%)
  • C-Suite (5%)
  • HR Warned Us About (1%)
• Named Subjects — hand-authored 1-of-1 characters appear at ~0.5% probability, always classified as "HR Warned Us About"
• HOMUNCULUS frame — every roll wraps the paragraph in a classified-document share card with subject ID, cohort (weekday), tier, ingestion date, and a flag (e.g. Do Not Contact)

Distribution is empirically tested: a 10k-roll test in tests/mystery_box.test.ts enforces ±2pp tolerance against the spec target.

Example output

HOMUNCULUS CORPUS · Subject 4483 · Cohort: Wednesday
Classification: Middle Manager · Rarity 94.5 · 80th percentile

Personnel record — Colin, Wizard of Light Bulb Moments. Distinguishing
features: a slightly-too-big blazer over a plain tee; a flip phone in
a belt holster; expression: patient disagreement. Notable behaviours:
clips their fingernails at the desk on Wednesday afternoons; a
kombucha SCOBY fermenting next to the keyboard; the kind to ask 'can
we park that?' without parking anything.

— RELATABILITY CORPUS v3.1 · ingested 2024-03-08 · flagged for review

Development

npm install          # install dependencies
npm run build        # compile TypeScript → dist/
npm run dev          # build then start the MCP server (stdio)
npm test             # run all 94 tests once
npm run test:watch   # re-run tests on file changes

Inspection scripts

Two Node ESM helpers under scripts/ let you inspect the WOW engine without booting the MCP server (these are included only in a cloned repo — they are not shipped in the npm install bling-bag package):

node scripts/show-rolls.mjs 8 2026          # print 8 framed share cards (seed=2026)
node scripts/distribution-check.mjs 10000   # tally tiers across 10k rolls vs. spec target

Project layout

src/
  index.ts             # MCP server entry point (stdio transport)
  identity.ts          # bling.json loader + validator
  tools.ts             # MCP tool registrations
  types.ts             # shared TypeScript types
  mystery_box.ts       # WOW engine barrel + rollIdentity orchestrator
  mystery_box/
    rng.ts             # seedable PRNG, weighted picker
    pools.ts           # 13 trait pools (465 entries)
    scoring.ts         # rarity score + tier thresholds
    rendering.ts       # paragraph templates + HOMUNCULUS frame
    named.ts           # hand-authored Named Subjects
tests/                 # vitest test suites
scripts/               # dev-time inspection tools
docs/superpowers/      # design specs and implementation plans

License

MIT