smalt-mcp 0.4.0

MCP server wrapping the Smalt's storage surface (read/write/link/claim/search) for ParkviewLab's CoGrind project.

smalt-mcp

MCP server wrapping the Smalt's storage surface (read / write / link / claim / search) for ParkviewLab's CoGrind project. Thinnest viable wrapper around markdown + LanceDB; no agentic logic. Single-writer to a given Smalt.

To cobalt-grinding what deco-assaying is to tree-sitter: a clean MCP-shaped wrapper around a deterministic capability.

Status

v0 foundation. Server runs; one MCP tool (status) wired up; storage layer ported from cobgrind/storage/ and ready for the rest of the tool surface. Track A of CoGrind's M2.7 plan — see cobalt-grinding/docs/plan.md for the full design.

Coming in the next iterations: read-only tools (list_pages, read_page, search, traverse, list_domains, list_proposals), read-write tools (write_page, write_pages, add_link, add_claim, write_proposal, bootstrap), auto-indexer-trigger on writes, end-to-end integration with CoGrind.

Run

Same five-mode pattern as deco-assaying. Pick whichever fits.

Mode	When to use
1. uvx (one-off)	Try it once, no install.
2. uv tool install (pinned daemon)	Run it occasionally, want it on $PATH.
3. macOS LaunchAgent	Persistent daemon on a Mac.
4. Linux systemd user unit	Persistent daemon on Linux.
5. Docker / docker compose	Container deployment.

In every mode the server listens on PORT (default 35833). Sanity-check:

curl http://127.0.0.1:35833/health

From source (current; until first release)

git clone https://github.com/ParkviewLab/smalt-mcp.git
cd smalt-mcp
uv sync
SMALT_DIR=~/Documents/Smalt uv run python -m smalt_mcp

Docker (after first release)

docker pull ghcr.io/parkviewlab/smalt-mcp:latest
docker run --rm \
  -p 35833:35833 \
  -e SMALT_SCOPE=read_only \
  -v smalt-data:/data \
  ghcr.io/parkviewlab/smalt-mcp:latest

Or use docker-compose.yml.

Endpoints

• POST /sse — MCP Streamable HTTP transport. Tools.
• GET /health — liveness probe ({ok, version, uptime_seconds}).
• GET /admin/version — server identity + scope + configured Smalt path.
• GET /docs — OpenAPI / Swagger UI for the HTTP routes.

HTTP responses are gzipped when the client sends Accept-Encoding: gzip.

MCP tools (v0)

Read-only:

• status — Smalt path, existence, LanceDB tables present, page count, single-writer mutex state, embedding provider. Always safe to call.

Read-write: (coming next iteration)

The full target surface is in cobalt-grinding/docs/plan.md under "Track A — ParkviewLab/smalt-mcp v0".

Configuration

Env var	Default	Purpose
PORT	35833	HTTP listen port.
HOST	0.0.0.0	HTTP bind address.
SMALT_DIR	~/Documents/Smalt	Path to the Smalt this server wraps. Auto-created on bootstrap (planned).
SMALT_SCOPE	read_write	read_only or read_write. Read-only deployments only expose tools that don't mutate the corpus.
EMBEDDING_PROVIDER	fastembed	Embedding backend. fastembed is the only one wired up; voyage / openai are placeholders.
EMBEDDING_MODEL	BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5	Model name passed to the provider.
EMBEDDING_DIM	384	Must match the model.
SMALT_INTERNAL_TOKEN	(unset)	Reserved for future per-client scope routing; not yet enforced.

Releasing

Tag-driven via the release workflow on push of a v* tag. Use the ParkviewLab/dev-tools helpers — they enforce the SSOT-tag-CI loop (pyproject.toml is the only place the version lives; CI verifies the pushed tag matches before publishing).

git bump patch              # 0.1.5 → 0.1.6, committed
git release                 # annotated tag v0.1.6 from pyproject.toml
git push --follow-tags      # CI fires

Don't have the helpers? Install once: git clone https://github.com/ParkviewLab/dev-tools.git ~/dev-tools && cd ~/dev-tools && ./install.sh.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.