payfast-mcp

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for PayFast, South Africa's leading payment gateway. Enables AI assistants like Claude to securely interact with your PayFast merchant account.

Features

• Transaction management — fetch transaction details, query history, process tokenized charges
• Subscription management — fetch, pause, unpause, cancel, update, and ad-hoc charge subscriptions
• Refund processing — create refunds (full or partial) and query refund status
• Credit card queries — look up credit card transaction details
• Sandbox support — defaults to sandbox mode for safe testing
• Secure by design — credentials via environment variables only, sensitive data never logged

Available Tools

| Tool | Description | Risk | |------|-------------|------| | ping | Test API connectivity | Low | | transaction_fetch | Get transaction by ID | Low | | transaction_history | Query transaction history | Low | | transaction_charge | Charge a stored token | Medium | | subscription_fetch | Get subscription details | Low | | subscription_pause | Pause a subscription | High | | subscription_unpause | Resume a subscription | Medium | | subscription_cancel | Cancel a subscription | High | | subscription_update | Update subscription terms | High | | subscription_adhoc | Ad-hoc subscription charge | High | | refund_create | Process a refund | High | | refund_fetch | Get refund details | Low | | creditcard_fetch | Query card transaction | Low |

High-risk operations require human approval before execution.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• A PayFast merchant account (sandbox or production)

Installation

npm install -g payfast-mcp

Or run directly with npx:

npx payfast-mcp

Configuration

Set the following environment variables:

| Variable | Required | Description | |----------|----------|-------------| | PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID | Yes | Your PayFast Merchant ID | | PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY | Yes | Your PayFast Merchant Key | | PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE | Yes | Your PayFast API Passphrase | | PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT | No | sandbox (default) or production |

You can also create a .env file in your working directory.

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "payfast": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "payfast-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID": "your-merchant-id",
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY": "your-merchant-key",
        "PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE": "your-passphrase",
        "PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code settings:

claude mcp add payfast \
  -e PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID=your-merchant-id \
  -e PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY=your-merchant-key \
  -e PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE=your-passphrase \
  -e PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT=sandbox \
  -- npx -y payfast-mcp

Cursor

Add to your Cursor MCP config (.cursor/mcp.json for project-level, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "payfast": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "payfast-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID": "your-merchant-id",
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY": "your-merchant-key",
        "PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE": "your-passphrase",
        "PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Codex

Add via the Codex CLI:

codex mcp add payfast \
  --env PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID=your-merchant-id \
  --env PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY=your-merchant-key \
  --env PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE=your-passphrase \
  --env PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT=sandbox \
  -- npx -y payfast-mcp

Or add directly to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.payfast]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "payfast-mcp"]

[mcp_servers.payfast.env]
PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID = "your-merchant-id"
PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY = "your-merchant-key"
PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE = "your-passphrase"
PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT = "sandbox"

Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/jpbester/payfast-mcp.git
cd payfast-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Run with MCP Inspector
npm run inspect

License

MIT