Skip to main content

PhysBox: MCP - Model Context Protocol server for local simulation apps

Project description

PhysBox: MCP

PhysBox: MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables LLMs and MCP clients (such as Claude Code or Claude Desktop) to interact programmatically with the three simulation web applications in the browser:

Application Production URL Description
Flux flux.physbox.io Discrete-event / system-dynamics simulation (interactive React Flow graph)
Volt volt.physbox.io SPICE circuit simulation (powered by NgSpice WASM in browser)
Mesh mesh.physbox.io Rigid-body physics simulation (powered by MuJoCo WASM in browser)

All communication is handled via JSON over WebSockets directly to the web app in your browser—no browser automation or DOM scraping is needed.


How It Works

PhysBox: MCP functions as a local companion server that establishes a WebSocket relay on port 3142.

When you open any of the simulation web apps, they connect directly to this WebSocket relay. When an MCP client executes a tool call, the command flows from the client to the companion server, gets forwarded to the active browser tab, and the results flow back.

MCP Client (e.g. Claude Desktop)
  └── spawns → physbox-mcp (stdio)
                 └── WebSocket Server (ws://localhost:3142)
                                ├── Flux
                                ├── Volt
                                └── Mesh

Installation

Install the companion server directly from PyPI:

pip install physbox-mcp

Usage & Setup

1. Open the Web Applications

Launch or access the simulation web applications in your web browser:

As soon as a page finishes loading, it automatically registers with the companion WebSocket server.

2. Configure Your MCP Client

For Claude Desktop

Add the following block to your Claude Desktop configuration file (typically located at AppData/Roaming/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on Windows or ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "physbox-mcp": {
      "command": "physbox-mcp",
      "args": ["--stdio"]
    }
  }
}

For Claude Code

Add a .mcp.json file to your project root (or update your global configuration at ~/.claude/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "physbox-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "physbox-mcp",
      "args": ["--stdio"]
    }
  }
}

For Google Antigravity IDE

On Windows/WSL setups, Antigravity IDE reads configuration from the global configuration directory. Because the global directory (~/.gemini/config/) may be write-restricted, you should link it to the writable ~/.gemini/antigravity/ folder:

  1. In PowerShell, create a Hard Link from the global configuration target to the writable user directory:

    # Delete the empty placeholder file if it exists
    Remove-Item -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\.gemini\config\mcp_config.json" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    
    # Create a Hard Link to the writable copy
    New-Item -ItemType HardLink -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\.gemini\config\mcp_config.json" -Target "$env:USERPROFILE\.gemini\antigravity\mcp_config.json"
    
  2. Add the physbox-mcp WSL configuration to your mcp_config.json (which maps automatically to the hard-linked destination):

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "physbox-mcp": {
          "command": "C:\\Windows\\system32\\wsl.exe",
          "args": [
            "-d",
            "Ubuntu-20.04",
            "/home/boab/physbox_mcp/venv/bin/python",
            "/home/boab/physbox_mcp/physbox_mcp/server.py",
            "--stdio"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
    
  3. Restart the IDE (or close and reload the agent chat session) to register the MCP tools natively.

3. Run the Companion Server Manually (Optional)

If you are running the server in HTTP mode rather than Stdio, you can run:

# Starts HTTP server listening on port 3141 (default)
physbox-mcp

Or configure custom port parameters:

physbox-mcp --port=4000

Development & Contribution

For instructions on local development, modifying schemas, extending tool definitions, and manual builds, please refer to README_DEV.md.

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

physbox_mcp-0.1.1.tar.gz (34.3 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

physbox_mcp-0.1.1-py3-none-any.whl (34.0 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file physbox_mcp-0.1.1.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: physbox_mcp-0.1.1.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 34.3 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.12

File hashes

Hashes for physbox_mcp-0.1.1.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 41e9f4267deaf05c9b09d0f8065de815c20b69c3839e764d3a592f1dac63fa07
MD5 58510a67c443d13da4c8536722abc021
BLAKE2b-256 776c4dd756293ecbf7c8c64bf903aab169e4443d0a157dc5ffed3c8666ef67f5

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for physbox_mcp-0.1.1.tar.gz:

Publisher: publish.yml on physbox-io/physbox-mcp

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file physbox_mcp-0.1.1-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: physbox_mcp-0.1.1-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 34.0 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.12

File hashes

Hashes for physbox_mcp-0.1.1-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 41918b01e249db91b064ec7e55ed33664900be61bef237d794439ea50f7e134f
MD5 9eaa9323f498028580560808fbc14242
BLAKE2b-256 a118a1252cf6f598f38eb73587ec6755dd4afb49b3cd55e4488f8a3ef3a61176

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for physbox_mcp-0.1.1-py3-none-any.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on physbox-io/physbox-mcp

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Supported by

AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Depot Continuous Integration Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page