MCP Integration

ArchSpine can expose your local .spine control plane to MCP-compatible AI tools over STDIO.

Boundary note: this MCP surface is read-only by design. It does not provide .spine write APIs or general repository write APIs. ArchSpine CLI/runtime remains the authoritative writer for official .spine outputs. This is part of the current collaboration boundary and runtime safety model, not a claim of strong same-permission host isolation.

Start the server

spine mcp start

Claude Desktop

Add this to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "archspine": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/archspine/dist/cli/index.js", "mcp", "start"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add a stdio MCP server from Settings -> Features -> MCP:

{
  "name": "ArchSpine",
  "type": "stdio",
  "command": "node",
  "args": ["/absolute/path/to/archspine/dist/cli/index.js", "mcp", "start"]
}

Claude Code / CLI

claude mcp add archspine node /absolute/path/to/archspine/dist/cli/index.js mcp start

What agents can access

Resources

• spine://project

Readable URI patterns

• spine://folder/{path}
• spine://file/{filePath}

Tools

• spine_query_invariants
• spine_query_responsibilities
• spine_preview_scan
• spine_get_drift_history
• spine_list_resource_templates

Optional context modes

If you want the agent to be nudged into a better reading order, set:

spine config set mcp.contextMode project-first

Supported values:

• off: no gating, current behavior
• project-first: require spine://project before folder or file reads
• search-first: require a search or scan tool call before folder or file reads

Folder and file URIs are readable once the client knows the pattern; the current server publicly lists only spine://project. Use spine_list_resource_templates when a client needs a machine-readable way to discover those folder/file URI patterns before opening them.

Why use MCP instead of giant prompts?

• Fetch only the part of the codebase the agent needs
• Keep rule and responsibility data close to the repository
• Reduce context drift in large engineering workflows

For operating details, continue with the Runbook and the Protocol.