protocontent

A co-located stdio MCP server that lets a coding agent publish local files to protocontent and get back a tappable, live-updating URL.

Because no MCP primitive lets a remote server read the client's disk (and Claude Code doesn't echo the HTTP Mcp-Session-Id), protocontent runs as a tiny bridge next to the agent — on your laptop or on a cloud agent VM. It reads the files you want to publish from the local filesystem and uploads them to the protocontent HTTP API, while holding a stable per-thread "space" id in memory.

Zero-config: on first run it mints an anonymous project token and caches it to ~/.protocontent/config.json.

Install / add to your agent

It runs straight from npx — no global install needed.

Claude Code

claude mcp add protocontent -- npx -y protocontent

To pass through a token or a custom API base:

claude mcp add protocontent \
  --env PROTOCONTENT_TOKEN=pc_live_xxx \
  --env PROTOCONTENT_API=https://api.protocontent.com \
  -- npx -y protocontent

Raw MCP server JSON config

For any client that takes an MCP server config block (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "protocontent": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "protocontent"],
      "env": {
        "PROTOCONTENT_TOKEN": "pc_live_xxx",
        "PROTOCONTENT_API": "https://api.protocontent.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Both env entries are optional. Omit PROTOCONTENT_TOKEN to use a cached or freshly-minted anonymous token; omit PROTOCONTENT_API to use the default (https://api.protocontent.com).

This works exactly the same on a cloud agent VM — the bridge just needs to run in the same place the files live, with network access to the protocontent API.

Configuration

| Env var | Default | Purpose | | --------------------- | -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | | PROTOCONTENT_API | https://api.protocontent.com | Base URL of the protocontent HTTP API. | | PROTOCONTENT_TOKEN | (cached / minted) | Bearer token. Falls back to ~/.protocontent/config.json, then to a freshly-minted anonymous project token. | | CLAUDE_SESSION_ID | (unset → random) | When set, deterministically seeds this process's space id so it lines up with the agent thread. |

Spaces

Each running bridge process owns one space — a DNS-safe id like amber-canyon-7f3 — generated once at startup and held in memory for the process lifetime. When CLAUDE_SESSION_ID is present the id is derived deterministically from it; otherwise it's random. A spaceLabel is derived from the current working directory's basename. Everything you publish in a session lands in the same space, served at https://<spaceId>.protocontent.app, which updates live.

Keeping artifacts out of git

protocontent artifacts are ephemeral — you publish them to a URL, you don't commit them. On startup the bridge makes a best-effort, idempotent check: if it's running inside a git repo, it ensures .protocontent/ is in your .gitignore. Stage anything you publish under .protocontent/ and it stays out of version control automatically. Opt out with PROTOCONTENT_NO_GITIGNORE=1.

Tools

| Tool | Arguments | What it does | | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | publish_html | { path?, content?, name?, ttl? } | Publish a single file (path) or inline content — exactly one of them. | | publish_folder | { dir, entry?, name?, ttl? } | Recursively publish a directory (skips node_modules, .git, dotfiles). | | list | {} | List artifacts in this space with URLs and versions. | | history | { name } | Show an artifact's version history. | | unpublish | { name } | Stop an artifact's URL from serving content. | | keep | { name } | Remove the expiry so an artifact is kept permanently. |

Every publish returns a tappable markdown link, the live space URL, and the direct artifact URL.

Develop

npm install
npm run build      # tsc -> dist/
node dist/index.js # run the stdio server directly (it talks MCP over stdio)

Requires Node 18+ (uses the built-in global fetch).

License

MIT