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CESAR NIKOLAS CAMAC MELENDEZ
CESAR NIKOLAS CAMAC MELENDEZ

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🌐 Build Your Own MCP Server — and Connect It to *Any* MCP Client (Claude, VSCode, GitHub, and More)

#programming #opensource #ai #developers

Imagine building a tool once… and instantly using it across Claude Desktop, VSCode, GitHub, or any future AI platform that supports MCP.

Welcome to the next evolution of AI/tool interoperability.

🚀 What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open-source standard designed to enable seamless integration between LLM-based clients and external systems/tools/data sources. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

It defines how clients (which may wrap chat-apps, IDEs, or other AI interfaces) connect to servers exposing context, tools, resources, and prompts — abstracting away most compatibility issues. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

🔧 Example Public Repositories

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel — there are reference MCP server implementations available to get you started:

Repo / SDK / Server Description / Key Features
GitHub MCP Server — github/github-mcp-server A server that connects AI clients to GitHub: enables reading repos, managing issues/PRs, analyzing code, automating workflows via natural-language interactions. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
ModelContextProtocol/servers — modelcontextprotocol/servers A curated collection of reference MCP server implementations: includes Template MCP Server, mcp-open-library, MCP-OpenStack-Ops, and more, in various languages/contexts. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

These repos let you fork, modify, or extend existing MCP servers — saving time and helping you follow established patterns.

🛠️ How to Spin Up a Sample MCP Server Locally (Example with GitHub MCP Server)

Here’s how you could get started with the GitHub MCP Server:

git clone https://github.com/github/github-mcp-server.git
cd github-mcp-server
# follow setup instructions (auth, env vars, etc.)
# likely you'll need to provide a GitHub token or configure OAuth
npm install   # or the appropriate build/deploy command
node ./server.js   # or equivalent start command
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⚠️ Security warning: MCP servers can execute arbitrary logic/tools, so only run trusted servers or audit code carefully before using them. MCP supports various transports including stdio, http, etc. ([Visual Studio Code][1])

Once running, you can configure your MCP-aware client (Claude Desktop, VSCode, or others) to connect to it — more on configuration below.

💡 Client Configuration & Usage

Most MCP clients support multiple “server” transports (HTTP, stdio, SSE, etc.). ([Visual Studio Code][1])

Here’s a minimal example of what your MCP config might look like in VSCode’s .vscode/mcp.json:

json
{
"servers": {
"my-github-mcp": {
"type": "http",
"url": "http://localhost:PORT"
}
}
}

Replace PORT with what your server is listening on. With this, your AI-assisted environment will be able to call the exposed MCP tools (e.g. list repos, open issues, analyze code) securely and interactively.

🚀 Why This is Awesome

  • Interoperability — One server + many clients.
  • Modular AI tooling — Expose custom logic/APIs as tools the AI can call.
  • Open-source & community-driven — Benefit from reference servers and SDKs maintained by the wider ecosystem (TS, Python, Java, etc.). ([GitHub][2])
  • Incremental adoption — Start small (e.g. expose a weather or search tool), then grow.

💬 What’s Next — Extend & Share

  1. Fork one of the example MCP servers above.
  2. Add your own tools/resources (DB access, private APIs, file parsers, whatever).
  3. Connect it to any UI client (Claude, VSCode, or home-grown client).
  4. Publish & share — the community thrives on real-world use-cases and feedback.

🔗 References & Resources

  • Official servers listing: modelcontextprotocol/servers repo.
  • GitHub-specific MCP server: github/github-mcp-server.
  • Official MCP docs: build guides, spec, transports, resource/types. ([Model Context Protocol][3])

🧠 Discussion — Over to You

What’s the coolest tool you’d build using MCP?

  • A code review bot that hooks directly into GitHub
  • A knowledge assistant over private docs/DB
  • A UI-driven tool that visually exposes data via AI prompts

Drop your thoughts, ideas or questions — let’s hack this together 👇

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