arcade-mcp/CONTRIBUTING.md
Eric Gustin 3424ec8219
MCP Local (#563)
Versions:
* arcade-mcp\==1.0.0rc1
* arcade-mcp-server\==1.0.0rc1
* arcade-core\==2.5.0rc1
* arcade-tdk\==2.6.0rc1
* arcade-serve\==2.2.0rc1

### Summary
Adds first-class MCP support across Arcade, introduces a new MCP server
and CLI, unifies the project under the arcade-mcp name, overhauls
templates/scaffolding, and improves developer tooling, secrets
management, and examples.

### Highlights
- **MCP Server & Core**
- New MCP server with stdio and HTTP/SSE transports, session management,
resumability, and lifecycle handling.
- FastAPI-like `MCPApp` for building servers with lazy init; integrated
worker+MCP HTTP app option.
- Middleware system (logging and error handling), robust exception
hierarchy, and Pydantic-based settings.
- Async-safe managers for tools, resources, and prompts backed by
registries and locks.
- Developer-facing, transport-agnostic runtime context interfaces (logs,
tools, prompts, resources, sampling, UI, notifications).
- Conversion from Arcade ToolDefinition to MCP tool schema; OpenAI JSON
tool schema converter.
  - Parser supports `@app.tool`/`@app.tool(...)` decorators.

- **CLI**
  - New `mcp` command to run MCP servers with stdio or HTTP/SSE.
- New `secret` command to set/list/unset tool secrets (supports .env
input, preserves original casing for lookups).
- `new` command refactored; option to create a full toolkit package with
scaffolding.
  - `chat` command removed.
- `serve.py` imports updated to `arcade_serve.fastapi.telemetry`;
version retrieval now uses `arcade-mcp`.
  - `show.py` refactor to use new local catalog utilities.
- `display_tool_details` improved: adds “Default” column and handles
nested properties.

- **Configuration & Discovery**
- New `configure.py` to set up Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code to
connect to local or Arcade Cloud MCP servers.
- Discovery utilities to find/install toolkits, build `ToolCatalog`s,
analyze files for tools, load kits from directories (pyproject parsing),
and build minimal toolkits.
- Better handling of provider API key resolution and evaluation suite
loading.

- **Templates & Scaffolding**
- Reorganized template structure (minimal vs full); moved
`.pre-commit-config.yaml`, `.ruff.toml`, license, Makefile, README,
tests, and tools layout to correct paths.
  - Minimal template adds `.env.example` for runtime secret injection.
- Template pyproject updated for MCP servers; includes sample server
with greeting and secret-reveal tools.
  - Authorization flow in templates simplified.

- **Repo-wide Renaming & Examples**
- Migrates references from `arcade-ai` to `arcade-mcp` across READMEs,
scripts, and package metadata.
- Examples updated (LangChain/LangGraph/AI SDK/TypeScript) and package
name changed to `arcade-mcp-sdk`.

- **Evals & Core Utilities**
- Evals now use OpenAI tooling format (`OpenAIToolList`, `to_openai`);
`tool_eval` takes `provider_api_key`.
- Core utilities: fixed `does_function_return_value` by dedenting before
parse; version bump to `2.5.0rc1` and dependency cleanup.

- **Tooling & CI**
- `setup-uv-env` action splits toolkit vs contrib dependency
installation.
- Pre-commit: excludes `libs/arcade-mcp-server/mkdocs.yml` and
`libs/tests/` from YAML and Ruff hooks; Ruff per-file ignores (e.g.,
C901 in `libs/**/*.py`, TRY400 in server docs paths).
- Makefile updates for uv env setup, quality checks, tests, builds, and
new `shell` target.
  - Added Makefile to MCP server library to streamline dev workflow.

- **Cleanup**
  - Removed `claude.json` config.
- Simplified stdio entrypoint; removed unused imports (`arcade_gmail`,
`arcade_search`).

### Breaking Changes
- **CLI**: `chat` command removed; use `mcp`, `secret`, and updated
`new`.
- **Naming**: All users should update references from `arcade-ai` to
`arcade-mcp`.
- **Templates**: File paths moved; downstream scripts referencing old
template locations may need updates.

### Getting Started
- Run an MCP server:
  - `arcade mcp --stdio --toolkits your_toolkit`
  - `arcade mcp --http --toolkits your_toolkit`
- Manage secrets:
  - `arcade secret set your_toolkit KEY=value`
  - `arcade secret list your_toolkit`
  - `arcade secret unset your_toolkit KEY`
- Configure clients:
- `arcade configure` to set up Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code for
local/Arcade Cloud MCP.

---------

Co-authored-by: Sam Partee <sam@arcade-ai.com>
Co-authored-by: Shub <125150494+shubcodes@users.noreply.github.com>
2025-09-25 15:28:15 -07:00

3.6 KiB

Contributing to arcade-mcp

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/ArcadeAI/arcade-mcp/issues

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

  • Your operating system name and version.
  • Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
  • Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with "bug" and "help wanted" is open to whoever wants to implement a fix for it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with "enhancement" and "help wanted" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

Arcade could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/ArcadeAI/arcade-mcp/issues.

If you are proposing a new feature:

  • Explain in detail how it would work.
  • Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
  • Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here's how to set up arcade-mcp for local development. Please note this documentation assumes you already have uv and Git installed and ready to go.

  1. Fork the arcade-mcp repo on GitHub.

  2. Clone your fork locally:

cd <directory_in_which_repo_should_be_created>
git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/arcade-mcp.git
  1. Now we need to install the environment. Navigate into the directory
cd arcade-mcp

Create your virtual environment

uv venv --python 3.11.6
  1. Install the development environment and dependencies:
# Install all packages and development dependencies via uv workspace
uv sync --extra all --dev

# Install pre-commit hooks for code quality
uv run pre-commit install

Or use the convenient Makefile command that does both:

make install

The uv workspace will automatically handle installing all lib packages in the correct dependency order.

  1. Create a branch for local development:
git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

Now you can make your changes locally.

  1. Don't forget to add test cases for your added functionality to the libs/tests directory.

  2. When you're done making changes, check that your changes pass the formatting tests.

make check

Now, validate that all unit tests are passing:

make test
  1. You can also run tests for specific components:
# Test all lib packages
make test
  1. The CI/CD pipeline will run additional checks across different Python versions, so local testing with a single version is usually sufficient.

  2. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

git add .
git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
  1. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

  1. The pull request should include tests.

  2. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated.

  3. If making contributions to multiple toolkits (i.e. Google and Slack, etc.), submit a separate pull request for each. This helps us segregate the changes during the review process making it more efficient.