justin
4009dc0b78
Add the fifth MCP tool — crop_seed_api_lessons(topic?) — backed by docs_mcp/lessons.md, the ONLY source of opinionated content in the server. Everything else (search_docs, get_page, lookup_variety) returns verbatim from vendor catalogs; lessons.md fills the gaps the corpus can't cover. The Pioneer fallback is the critical anti-hallucination piece: Pioneer's ToS bans automation, so the corpus has no Pioneer data. Without this tool, an agent might surface Bayer/Asgrow chunks as mediocre matches for a Pioneer query. The tool's docstring tells the agent to call it on any Pioneer / P-series question; the 'pioneer' section says clearly: "I don't have Pioneer's variety data indexed... please consult Pioneer or an extension service." "Do NOT invent Pioneer hybrid ratings." Other lesson sections cover knowledge the agent needs to interpret search_docs / get_page output correctly: - rating-scales: Bayer 1-9, Golden Harvest 9-to-1, what R/MR/S/Rps1c/R3 mean in soybean disease columns - maturity-semantics: corn RM days vs soybean MG vs wheat class + qualitative early/medium/late - trait-glossary: SSRIB, VT2PRIB, XF, E3, Conkesta, Clearfield, etc. - scn-resistance: race coverage + Peking vs PI 88788 source - regional-listings: how to interpret Bayer's "local profiles" - sources-not-yet-indexed: which vendors aren't in the corpus yet - checking-your-work: always call lookup_variety before quoting Lesson lookup prefers slug-match (returns just `rating-scales` for topic="rating", not every section that mentions ratings); falls back to body-match only when no slug matches. Smoke-tested with topic=pioneer, topic=rating, topic=trait, topic=zzzzzz (no match), and topic=None (full index = 10K chars, 8 sections). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
seed-mcp
MCP server over the public catalogs of major US row-crop seed
vendors — corn, soybeans, wheat. Sibling project to
crop-chem-docs
(pesticide labels), feeding the same Drawbar farm-advisor AI.
The server exposes per-variety records with agronomic ratings, disease tolerance, trait stack, maturity, and regional notes — so the advisor can answer questions like "which corn hybrid for sandy soil, drought-prone, RM ≤105 in northeast Iowa?" without rummaging through individual brand sites.
Vendor coverage
| Vendor | Verdict | Varieties | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayer seeds (DEKALB + Asgrow + WestBred) | 🟢 | ~475 | Same cropscience.bayer.us Next.js infra as crop-chem-docs |
| Golden Harvest (Syngenta) | 🟢 | ~175 | Sitemap + server-rendered HTML + Syngenta CDN PDFs |
| NK (Syngenta) | 🟢 | 29 | Shares PDF fetcher with Golden Harvest |
| AgriPro (Syngenta wheat) | 🟢 | 24 | Drupal Views, server-rendered |
| Beck's PFR | 🟡 | 2,089 | Public Sanity GROQ API (no auth) |
| Beck's products | 🟡 | 860 | Identity-only until SeedIQ XHR sniffed |
| Pioneer (Corteva) | 🔴 | — | ToS bans automation — curated fallback lesson instead |
Quick start
git clone https://git.jpaul.io/justin/seed-mcp.git
cd seed-mcp
python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
# Run one scraper
python -m scrape.runner --source bayer_seeds --force
# Rebuild indexes
python -m rag.index --rebuild
# Local MCP server (stdio for Claude Desktop dev)
python -m docs_mcp.server --transport stdio
Tools exposed
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
search_docs |
Hybrid + rerank variety search with crop / RM / trait / region filters |
get_page |
Full variety record by (source, source_key) |
list_versions |
Discover crops, brands, traits, RM/MG ranges, wheat classes |
corpus_status |
Counts + freshness; useful for health probes |
crop_seed_api_lessons |
Curated agronomy lessons — Pioneer fallback, disease-scale normalization, regional placement heuristics |
Build phases
This is a clone of docs-mcp-template.
The 13 phases in PLAN.md apply:
| Phase | Status |
|---|---|
| 0 — scaffold | done |
| 1 — first scraper (bayer_seeds) | next |
| 2 — chunk + index | pending |
| 3 — baseline MCP tools | template defaults |
| 4-5 — Dockerfile + CI | done (placeholders filled) |
| 6 — reranker | shares llama-rerank sidecar with crop-chem-docs |
| 7 — eval harness | pending (curate ~25 queries) |
| 8 — hybrid search | done (template) |
| 9 — diff_versions, list_cluster | optional |
11 — crop_seed_api_lessons curated layer |
pending |
See CLAUDE.md for the canonical sidecar schema and the
disease-scale-normalization gotcha (Golden Harvest is reversed).
Infrastructure
- Registry:
git.jpaul.io/justin/seed-mcp:latest(Watchtower) /:corpus-YYYY.MM.DD(production pin) - Embedder: shared Ollama pool with crop-chem-docs (Gitea-host GPUs + Windows Ollama; CI never hits trashpanda's production Ollama)
- Reranker: shared
llama-reranksidecar on trashpanda's Tesla P4 (one container, both MCPs use it) - PRODUCT_NAME:
crop_seed(notseed_mcp— used in Chroma collection, BM25 db filename, andcrop_seed_api_lessonstool)