mcp-context-card

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 | |---|---| | | |

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

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

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

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. MIT, on npm.

It composes:

• serve · discover · render — this server
• author BETTER, keep true — 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, server-git / 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 · light · dark (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), 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.)

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

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:

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:

{
  "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. Transport choice is in 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) — 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 and .fafa — one instantiation each, swap in your own.

The wire‑level detail is in 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; another checks the stdio and HTTP tool surfaces match.

Layout

| Path | What | |---|---| | src/server.ts | the nine tools + the Server Card resource | | src/agents-md.ts | reads and section‑splits AGENTS.md | | src/author.ts | author_agents_md — BETTER via agents-md-facts, BEST when project.faf exists | | src/md.ts | a minimal dependency‑free Markdown → HTML renderer | | src/render-card.ts | the card — identity + AGENTS.md + memory + discovery, as one HTML page | | src/memory.ts | file‑backed remember / recall / forget | | src/identity.ts | whoami (.fafa → package.json fallback) + the _meta block | | src/catalog-gen.ts | writes ai-catalog.json from the same three sources | | src/transport/http.ts | the stateless Streamable HTTP app (Hono) | | src/bin.ts | the entry point — stdio · --http · card · --help · --version |

Related

• Server Card SEP‑2127 · ai-catalog · AGENTS.md
• mcp-project-context — an earlier take on the context concern alone
• text/markdown (AGENTS.md) · application/vnd.fafm+yaml · application/vnd.fafa+yaml

License

MIT.

This repo dogfoods what it serves — its AGENTS.md is a real, current file, and it ships a project.faf as the structured source behind it.