9ba615c8ee
Template for building hosted MCP servers over a product's public
documentation. Distilled from one production build; everything
product-specific has been factored out.
Contents:
- PLAN.md — comprehensive build guide. 13 phases from project
skeleton through weekly_digest. Includes the gotchas
("fetch-depth: 0 always", reranker per-pair token limit,
Cloudflare body cap, dash-not-bash on Gitea runners), the
decisions worth carrying forward, and a per-product
customization checklist.
- CLAUDE.md — guidance for Claude Code working in a clone of this
template. Phase identification table, conventions (env-gating +
operator confirmation for side-effecting tools, defensive
fallback for retrieval components), common commands.
- README.md — quick-start summary.
Scaffolded code (all signature-stable, with NotImplementedError
stubs where phase-specific work is required):
docs_mcp/server.py FastMCP server, stateless_http=True, with
search_docs / get_page / list_versions
baseline tools and commented stubs for the
rest of the phase set.
docs_mcp/usage.py TimedCall telemetry, JSONL, daily rotation,
90-day retention. Reusable as-is.
rag/embeddings.py Ollama embedder (nomic-embed-text default),
load-balanced across N URLs. Reusable.
rag/chunk.py Paragraph-aware chunker with synthetic
chunk 0. Per-product tunable.
rag/index.py Chroma + BM25 builder. --rebuild and
--bm25-only flags.
rag/bm25.py SQLite FTS5 lexical index. Reusable.
scrape/changelog.py --cached / --ref / --json / --history-out.
Reusable.
scrape/README.md What you write per-product.
eval/queries.jsonl.example
Curate ~25 hand-labeled queries here.
eval/retrievers.py Retriever protocol + stub classes.
eval/run_eval.py MRR / Recall@K / nDCG@K harness skeleton.
scripts/usage_report.py
Standalone log analyzer; the
FOLLOW-UP CHECKS pattern noted in the
module docstring.
scripts/registry_gc.py
Gitea container registry cleanup. Reusable.
Deployment + CI:
Dockerfile Python 3.12-slim; COPY corpus + chroma
+ bm25 last for cache efficiency.
deploy/docker-compose.yml MCP + reranker sidecar + Watchtower.
Templated with <placeholders>.
.gitea/workflows/refresh.yml Weekly cron + manual dispatch.
fetch-depth: 0, retry-on-race,
three-tag image scheme.
.gitea/workflows/image-only.yml Code-only ship cycle, ~18min.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
105 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
105 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
# docs-mcp-template
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A reusable template for building hosted MCP servers over a product's
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public documentation. Distilled from one production build; everything
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product-specific has been factored out.
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The end product is a streamable-HTTP MCP server with ~15 tools that
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any LLM client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) can
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call to answer questions against the docs, surface what changed
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recently, find inconsistencies, and (optionally) submit doc bugs
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back upstream.
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## What's here
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- **[PLAN.md](PLAN.md)** — comprehensive build guide. Phased
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approach (13 phases, ~2–3 weeks of focused work for the full
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stack). Includes the design decisions, the gotchas, and a
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per-product customization checklist.
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- **Scaffolded skeleton** — working FastMCP server with stub tools,
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Dockerfile, docker-compose, CI workflows, eval harness layout,
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usage logging. Everything you need to `git clone` and start
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filling in the product-specific bits.
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## Quick start
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```bash
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git clone https://git.jpaul.io/justin/docs-mcp-template.git my-product-docs
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cd my-product-docs
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git remote remove origin # detach from template
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python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
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pip install -r requirements.txt
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# Read PLAN.md before doing anything else. Pay particular attention to
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# Phase 1 (scraper) — that's the most product-specific phase.
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# Run the stub server (no corpus yet — just verifies the wiring):
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python -m docs_mcp.server --transport stdio
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```
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## Repo layout
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```
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.
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├── PLAN.md # The build guide. Read first.
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├── README.md
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├── requirements.txt
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├── Dockerfile
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├── .gitignore
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├── .gitea/workflows/
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│ ├── refresh.yml # Weekly scrape + index + image push
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│ └── image-only.yml # On-demand code-only ship
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├── scrape/
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│ ├── README.md # Product-specific scraper goes here
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│ └── changelog.py # Reusable: --json, --history-out
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├── rag/
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│ ├── embeddings.py # Ollama embedder, swappable
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│ ├── chunk.py # Chunker — adjust per page format
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│ ├── index.py # Builds Chroma + (optionally) BM25
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│ └── bm25.py # SQLite FTS5 lexical index
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├── docs_mcp/
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│ ├── server.py # FastMCP server with stub tools
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│ └── usage.py # TimedCall + JSONL telemetry
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├── eval/
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│ ├── queries.jsonl.example # Curate ~25 hand-labeled queries
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│ ├── retrievers.py # Retriever protocol + implementations
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│ └── run_eval.py # MRR / Recall@k / nDCG@k harness
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├── scripts/
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│ ├── usage_report.py # Standalone log analyzer
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│ └── registry_gc.py # Container registry cleanup
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└── deploy/
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└── docker-compose.yml # Hosting stack: MCP + reranker + Watchtower
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```
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## What's product-specific (must implement)
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- `scrape/` — the scraper itself. The template gives you the corpus
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layout contract and a working `changelog.py`; the actual extraction
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logic is yours.
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- The corpus on disk (gitignored; rebuilt by CI).
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- The reranker GGUF model and llama.cpp container (commented in
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`deploy/docker-compose.yml`).
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- The reverse proxy / TLS layer in front of the public endpoint.
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- The hand-curated knowledge surface (your product's API gotchas,
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example scripts, anything the LLM should know that the docs
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don't say).
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## What's NOT product-specific (works as-is)
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- FastMCP server skeleton + tool decoration pattern
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- Chroma + Ollama embedding pipeline
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- BM25 / SQLite FTS5 lexical index
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- Hybrid retrieval (RRF) + reranker integration
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- Eval harness (Retriever protocol, MRR/Recall/nDCG)
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- Usage logging (TimedCall, JSONL, daily rotation)
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- CI workflow shape (weekly + on-demand, retry-on-race, three-tag
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image scheme)
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- Registry GC script
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- Standard tools: `search_docs`, `get_page`, `list_versions`,
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`diff_versions`, `bundle_changelog`, `weekly_digest`,
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`find_doc_inconsistencies`, `submit_doc_bug`, etc.
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## License
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Internal template. Adjust before publishing.
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