conduit-mcp 🐱

The purr-fect MCP server for feline-fast file operations, web prowling, and data hunting! 🐾

A sleek Model Context Protocol server that helps your AI assistant navigate the digital jungle with cat-like agility.

🎉 Version 1.0.0 Released!

We're excited to announce the first stable release of conduit-mcp! This production-ready MCP server brings powerful file system operations, web content processing, and advanced search capabilities to your AI assistant.

🐈 What Makes This Cat Special?

conduit-mcp is like having a highly trained data-hunting cat that can:

• 🏠 Patrol your file system (within allowed territories, of course!)
• 🌐 Hunt across the web for tasty content morsels
• 📄 Clean up messy HTML into pristine Markdown
• 🖼️ Compress images without losing their shine
• 📁 Organize files with military precision
• 🔍 Track down specific files using advanced search techniques
• 📦 Pack and unpack archives like a pro moving service
• ⚡ Process operations in batches for maximum efficiency

Unlike those lazy house cats, this server works 24/7 and never knocks things off your desk! 😸

🎯 Quick Start (Get Your Cat Running!)

Method 1: The Easy Way (Recommended)

Just tell your MCP client about your new digital pet:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "conduit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@steipete/conduit-mcp@beta"],
      "env": {
        "CONDUIT_ALLOWED_PATHS": "~/Documents:~/Projects:/tmp",
        "LOG_LEVEL": "INFO"
      }
    }
  }
}

Method 2: The Developer Way (For Cat Breeders)

git clone <repository_url>
cd conduit-mcp
npm install
# Configure your MCP client to use ./start.sh

🏠 Setting Up Your Cat's Territory

Your digital cat needs to know where it's allowed to roam! Configure the CONDUIT_ALLOWED_PATHS environment variable:

# Let your cat explore Documents and Projects
CONDUIT_ALLOWED_PATHS="~/Documents:~/Projects"

# Default playground (if you don't specify)
# Your cat defaults to: "~:/tmp"
# (Don't worry, it'll meow about this the first time!)

🚨 Security Notice: Your cat is well-trained and won't venture outside its allowed territories. It also follows all symlinks to ensure no sneaky escapes!

🐾 What Your Cat Can Do

🔍 The read Tool - Master Detective Cat

Your cat can investigate files and URLs with three different specialties:

Content Reading (operation: "content")

Read and process content from files or URLs in various formats.

{
  "tool": "read",
  "operation": "content",
  "sources": ["~/Documents/important.txt", "https://example.com/article"],
  "format": "text"
}

Format Options:

• "text" - Read as plain text (default for text files)
• "base64" - Binary-safe encoding (default for images/binaries)
• "markdown" - Web pages get the full spa treatment! 🧖‍♀️
• "checksum" - Generate cryptographic fingerprints

Parameters:

• sources: string[] (Required) - Array of file paths or URLs
• format?: string (Optional) - Output format
• checksum_algorithm?: string (Optional) - "md5" | "sha1" | "sha256" | "sha512"
• offset?: integer (Optional) - Byte offset to start reading from
• length?: integer (Optional) - Number of bytes to read

Special Powers:

• 🌐 Web Page Cleaning: Turns messy HTML into beautiful Markdown using Mozilla Readability
• 🖼️ Smart Image Compression: Automatically compresses large images with Sharp
• 📐 Partial Reading: Read specific byte ranges with offset and length
• 🔒 Checksum Calculation: SHA256, MD5, SHA1, or SHA512

Metadata Inspection (operation: "metadata")

Get detailed information about files or URLs without reading their content.

{
  "tool": "read",
  "operation": "metadata",
  "sources": ["~/Documents/mystery_file.pdf"]
}

Returns: File size, MIME type, timestamps, permissions, HTTP headers (for URLs), and more!

File Comparison (operation: "diff")

Compare two files and see exactly what changed.

{
  "tool": "read",
  "operation": "diff",
  "sources": ["~/file1.txt", "~/file2.txt"],
  "diff_format": "unified"
}

Parameters:

• sources: string[2] (Required) - Exactly two file paths
• diff_format?: string (Optional) - Currently supports "unified"

✏️ The write Tool - Master Builder Cat

Your cat can modify the file system with surgical precision through various actions:

File Operations (action: "put")

Write content to files with different encoding and write modes.

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "put",
  "entries": [
    {
      "path": "~/Documents/new_file.txt",
      "content": "Hello from your digital cat! 🐱",
      "write_mode": "overwrite",
      "input_encoding": "text"
    }
  ]
}

Parameters for put:

• path: string (Required) - Target file path
• content: string (Required) - Content to write
• input_encoding?: "text" | "base64" (Optional, default: "text")
• write_mode?: "overwrite" | "append" | "error_if_exists" (Optional, default: "overwrite")

Directory Operations (action: "mkdir")

Create directories with optional recursive creation.

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "mkdir",
  "entries": [
    {
      "path": "~/Documents/new_folder/subfolder",
      "recursive": true
    }
  ]
}

File Management (action: "copy" | "move" | "delete")

Copy, move, or delete files and directories.

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "copy",
  "entries": [
    {
      "source_path": "~/file.txt",
      "destination_path": "~/backup/"
    }
  ]
}

Available Actions:

• "put" - Write files (text or base64)
• "mkdir" - Create directories (with recursive option)
• "copy" - Duplicate files/folders
• "move" - Relocate and rename
• "delete" - Remove files/folders (with recursive for directories)
• "touch" - Update timestamps or create empty files

Archive Operations

Create and extract archives in multiple formats.

Create Archive (action: "archive"):

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "archive",
  "source_paths": ["~/Documents/folder1", "~/Documents/file1.txt"],
  "archive_path": "~/backup.zip",
  "format": "zip",
  "recursive_source_listing": true
}

Extract Archive (action: "unarchive"):

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "unarchive",
  "archive_path": "~/backup.zip",
  "destination_path": "~/restored/",
  "format": "zip"
}

Archive Formats: ZIP, TAR.GZ, TGZ - your cat handles them all!

📋 The list Tool - Inventory Cat

Directory Listing (operation: "entries")

Explore directory structures with recursive capabilities.

{
  "tool": "list",
  "operation": "entries",
  "path": "~/Documents",
  "recursive_depth": 2,
  "calculate_recursive_size": true
}

Parameters:

• path: string (Required) - Directory to list
• recursive_depth?: integer (Optional, default: 0) - How deep to recurse
• calculate_recursive_size?: boolean (Optional, default: false) - Calculate total size of directories

Special Features:

• 🌳 Recursive Exploration: Dive deep into folder structures
• 📊 Size Calculation: Get total size of directories and their contents
• 🔗 Symlink Detection: Identifies and follows symbolic links
• ⏱️ Smart Timeouts: Won't get stuck calculating huge directories

System Information (operation: "system_info")

Get information about the server and file system.

{
  "tool": "list",
  "operation": "system_info",
  "info_type": "server_capabilities"
}

Info Types:

• "server_capabilities" - Server version, configuration, supported features
• "filesystem_stats" - File system statistics for a given path

🔎 The find Tool - Bloodhound Cat

The most sophisticated search tool - your cat can find ANYTHING using multiple criteria:

{
  "tool": "find",
  "base_path": "~/Documents",
  "recursive": true,
  "match_criteria": [
    {
      "type": "name_pattern",
      "pattern": "*.{pdf,doc,docx}"
    },
    {
      "type": "metadata_filter",
      "attribute": "size_bytes",
      "operator": "gt",
      "value": 1048576
    }
  ],
  "entry_type_filter": "file"
}

Parameters:

• base_path: string (Required) - Starting directory
• recursive?: boolean (Optional, default: true) - Search subdirectories
• match_criteria: object[] (Required) - Array of search criteria (ALL must match)
• entry_type_filter?: "file" | "directory" | "any" (Optional) - Filter by entry type

Search Criteria Types

Name Pattern Matching:

{
  "type": "name_pattern",
  "pattern": "*.txt"
}

Content Search:

{
  "type": "content_pattern",
  "pattern": "TODO|FIXME",
  "is_regex": true,
  "case_sensitive": false,
  "file_types_to_search": [".js", ".ts", ".py"]
}

Metadata Filtering:

{
  "type": "metadata_filter",
  "attribute": "modified_at_iso",
  "operator": "after",
  "value": "2023-01-01T00:00:00Z",
  "case_sensitive": false
}

Search Superpowers:

• 🎯 Multi-criteria AND logic: All criteria must match
• 🔤 Glob patterns: *.txt, image[0-9]?.png, **/logs/*.log
• 📝 Content search: Text or regex patterns in file contents
• 📅 Date filtering: Find files by creation/modification dates
• 📏 Size filtering: Find large files, empty files, etc.
• 🎭 MIME type filtering: Search by file type

🧪 The test Tool - Quality Assurance Cat

A debugging tool for testing the MCP server functionality.

{
  "tool": "test",
  "operation": "echo",
  "params_to_echo": { "message": "Hello, world!" }
}

Operations:

• "echo" - Echo back provided parameters for testing
• "generate_error" - Generate specific error codes for testing error handling

🎛️ Configuring Your Cat

Your digital cat responds to these environment variables:

Core Settings

# Territory boundaries (IMPORTANT!)
CONDUIT_ALLOWED_PATHS="~/Documents:~/Projects:/tmp"

# Logging (where your cat writes its diary)
LOG_LEVEL="INFO"  # TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL
CONDUIT_LOG_FILE_PATH="/tmp/conduit-mcp.log"  # or "NONE" to disable

Performance Tuning

# Resource limits (keep your cat well-behaved)
CONDUIT_MAX_PAYLOAD_SIZE_BYTES="10485760"      # 10MB max incoming requests
CONDUIT_MAX_FILE_READ_BYTES="52428800"         # 50MB max file reads
CONDUIT_MAX_FILE_READ_BYTES_FIND="524288"      # 512KB max for find content search
CONDUIT_MAX_URL_DOWNLOAD_SIZE_BYTES="20971520" # 20MB max downloads
CONDUIT_HTTP_TIMEOUT_MS="30000"                # 30 second timeouts

# Image compression (make photos diet-friendly)
CONDUIT_IMAGE_COMPRESSION_THRESHOLD_BYTES="1048576"  # 1MB threshold
CONDUIT_IMAGE_COMPRESSION_QUALITY="75"               # Quality 1-100

Advanced Settings

# Search and recursion limits
CONDUIT_MAX_RECURSIVE_DEPTH="10"           # How deep to explore
CONDUIT_RECURSIVE_SIZE_TIMEOUT_MS="60000"  # 60 second timeout

# Default checksum algorithm
CONDUIT_DEFAULT_CHECKSUM_ALGORITHM="sha256"  # md5, sha1, sha256, sha512

🎉 Special Features That Make This Cat Purr

🌐 Web Content Cleaning

When you ask for Markdown from a URL, your cat:

1. Fetches the raw HTML
2. Uses Mozilla Readability to extract main content
3. Converts to clean Markdown with Turndown
4. Serves you a beautifully formatted result!

For non-HTML content, it gracefully falls back to raw text with helpful notes.

🖼️ Intelligent Image Compression

Large images automatically get compressed using Sharp:

• JPEG/WebP: Quality-based compression
• PNG: Lossless optimization
• Preserves original size information
• Graceful fallback if compression fails

🔒 Security Features

Your cat is security-conscious:

• Path validation: Never ventures outside allowed territories
• Symlink resolution: Follows links but validates final destinations
• Resource limits: Won't eat all your memory or bandwidth
• Input sanitization: Properly validates all parameters

📋 Batch Operations

Efficiency expert! Process multiple files in a single request:

{
  "tool": "write",
  "action": "copy",
  "entries": [
    { "source_path": "~/file1.txt", "destination_path": "~/backup/" },
    { "source_path": "~/file2.txt", "destination_path": "~/backup/" },
    { "source_path": "~/folder1", "destination_path": "~/backup/" }
  ]
}

🔄 First-Time Setup Notice

When using default paths (~:/tmp), your cat will politely inform you on the first successful operation with details about the configuration. It's like a friendly meow saying "Hi! Here's where I'm allowed to play!"

🚨 Error Handling

Your cat is well-mannered and provides detailed error information:

{
  "status": "error",
  "error_code": "ERR_FS_ACCESS_DENIED",
  "error_message": "Cannot access path outside allowed directories: /forbidden/path"
}

Common Error Categories:

• ERR_FS_* - File system issues
• ERR_HTTP_* - Web request problems
• ERR_INVALID_PARAMETER - Bad input data
• ERR_RESOURCE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED - Size/timeout limits hit
• ERR_ARCHIVE_* - Archive operation failures
• ERR_MARKDOWN_* - Web content processing issues

🛠️ Development & Testing

Running Tests

npm test                # Run all tests
npm run test:coverage   # With coverage report
npm run test:unit       # Unit tests only
npm run test:e2e        # End-to-end tests

Building

npm run build          # Compile TypeScript
npm run dev            # Development mode with auto-reload
npm run lint           # Check code style
npm run format         # Auto-format code

🤝 Contributing

We love contributions! Please:

1. 🍴 Fork the repository
2. 🌿 Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-cat-feature)
3. 🐾 Make your changes (follow the existing code style)
4. ✅ Add tests for new functionality
5. 📝 Update documentation if needed
6. 🚀 Submit a pull request

Commit Convention

We use conventional commits:

feat: add new search criteria type
fix: resolve symlink resolution bug
docs: update README with new examples
test: add integration tests for archive operations

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🐱 Fun Facts About Your Digital Cat

• Version: 1.0.0 - Production ready!
• Line Count: ~17,200 lines of carefully crafted TypeScript
• Dependencies: Only the finest NPM packages (axios, sharp, jsdom, etc.)
• Test Coverage: >90% (this cat is thoroughly tested!)
• Protocols: 100% MCP compliant
• Character Encoding: UTF-8 all the way
• Timestamp Format: ISO 8601 UTC (because cats are international)
• Node.js: Requires >=18.0.0

🎯 Use Cases

Perfect for AI assistants that need to:

• 📊 Analyze local codebases and documentation
• 🌐 Research web content and convert to readable formats
• 🔄 Manage file organization and backups
• 🔍 Search across mixed content types
• 📸 Process and optimize images
• 📦 Handle archive operations
• 📈 Generate reports from filesystem data

🆘 Support & Community

• 📚 Documentation: You're reading it! (Plus the technical spec in /docs/spec.md)
• 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues for bugs and feature requests
• 💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions for questions and ideas
• 📧 Contact: Open source project - community driven!

---

Happy hunting! 🐾

Your digital cat is ready to pounce on any data challenge you throw at it!