Dev Skills MCP Server

An MCP server that gives AI assistants specialized development expertise. Instead of generic coding help, it provides opinionated, battle-tested playbooks for building microservices, frontends, databases, DevOps pipelines, and more.

Works with VS Code Copilot (Agent Mode), Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible client.

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

Node.js ≥ 18
npm ≥ 9
Git
An MCP-compatible client (VS Code 1.99+, Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.)

1. Clone & Install

git clone https://github.com/parikrut/mcp-toolkit.git
cd mcp-toolkit
npm install

2. Build

npm run build

This compiles TypeScript into dist/.

3. Connect to Your AI Client

Pick the client you use and follow the steps below.

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Setup — VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

Requires VS Code 1.99+ with GitHub Copilot extension.

Option A — Open this repo directly:

The repo already includes .vscode/mcp.json. Just open the folder in VS Code:

code mcp-toolkit

Copilot will auto-discover the server. Switch to Agent mode in the Copilot chat panel and you'll see the dev-skills tools available.

Option B — Add to another project:

Create .vscode/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "servers": {
    "dev-skills": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLS_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/src/skills"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace /absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit with the actual path where you cloned the repo.

Tip: Use ${workspaceFolder} if the MCP toolkit is inside your project.

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Setup — Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dev-skills": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLS_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/src/skills"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

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Setup — Cursor

Open Settings → MCP Servers → Add Server and enter:

| Field | Value | |-------|-------| | Name | dev-skills | | Command | node | | Args | /absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/dist/index.js | | Env | SKILLS_DIR=/absolute/path/to/mcp-toolkit/src/skills |

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Verify It Works

After connecting, ask your AI assistant:

List all available dev skills

You should see 7 categories and 60 skills returned via the list_skills tool.

You can also test from the terminal:

# Interactive inspector (opens a web UI)
npm run inspect

# Or pipe JSON-RPC directly
printf '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"test","version":"1.0"}}}\n{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_skills","arguments":{}}}\n' | node dist/index.js 2>/dev/null

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The Problem

AI assistants know general coding — but they don't know your team's way of building things. Every team has specific patterns, conventions, and standards that get lost in onboarding docs nobody reads.

The Solution

Package your development expertise as skills (Markdown files) that any AI assistant can read and follow at runtime:

Developer: "Create a new user authentication microservice"

AI + MCP Server:
  1. Reads your microservice skill → learns YOUR patterns
  2. Reads your auth skill → learns YOUR security standards
  3. Scaffolds files from YOUR templates
  4. Validates output against YOUR rules
  5. Returns standards-compliant code

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Core Tools

| Tool | What It Does | |------|-------------| | list_skills | Browse all skills organized by category | | get_skill | Retrieve a specific skill or category overview, or search by keyword | | scaffold | Generate files from Handlebars templates with variable substitution | | check_standards | Extract rules from skill docs and create a compliance checklist |

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Skill Categories (Included)

| Category | Skills | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | backend-patterns | 12 | NestJS controllers, services, guards, interceptors, middleware | | contract-patterns | 6 | Zod schemas, route constants, event contracts, barrel exports | | cross-service-patterns | 4 | Service clients, distributed locks, response envelopes | | database-patterns | 6 | Prisma ORM, db-per-service, env validation, seed data | | event-patterns | 5 | RabbitMQ publishers, subscribers, event flows | | frontend-patterns | 21 | React pages, data tables, forms, charts, auth, wizards | | infra-patterns | 6 | Dockerfiles, docker-compose, infra generators |

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Using a Custom Skills Directory

By default the server loads skills from src/skills/ inside the repo. To point it at your own skills library:

# Via environment variable
SKILLS_DIR=/path/to/your/skills node dist/index.js

# Or via CLI argument
node dist/index.js --skills-dir /path/to/your/skills

Skills are organized as Markdown files in category folders:

your-skills/
├── backend/
│   ├── index.md          ← category overview (optional)
│   ├── controller.md
│   └── service.md
├── frontend/
│   ├── index.md
│   └── component.md
└── testing/
    └── unit-testing.md

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Project Structure

mcp-toolkit/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts                 # Server entry point
│   ├── utils/
│   │   └── skills-loader.ts     # Loads .md files from skills directory
│   ├── tools/
│   │   ├── list-skills.ts       # list_skills tool
│   │   ├── get-skill.ts         # get_skill tool
│   │   ├── scaffold.ts          # scaffold tool
│   │   └── check-standards.ts   # check_standards tool
│   └── skills/                  # Built-in knowledge base (60 skills)
│       ├── backend-patterns/
│       ├── contract-patterns/
│       ├── cross-service-patterns/
│       ├── database-patterns/
│       ├── event-patterns/
│       ├── frontend-patterns/
│       └── infra-patterns/
├── dist/                        # Compiled output (after npm run build)
├── .vscode/mcp.json             # VS Code Copilot MCP config
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── readme.md

Tech Stack

TypeScript • Node.js • MCP SDK (@modelcontextprotocol/sdk) • Zod for validation
Protocol: JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio transport

npm Scripts

| Script | Command | Description | |--------|---------|-------------| | build | npm run build | Compile TypeScript → dist/ | | dev | npm run dev | Watch mode (recompile on changes) | | start | npm start | Run the compiled server | | inspect | npm run inspect | Open MCP Inspector web UI |

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Example Usage

Once connected, try these prompts with your AI assistant:

"List all available skills" → calls list_skills, shows all 7 categories
"Show me the NestJS controller pattern" → calls get_skill("backend-patterns/controller")
"How do you handle events?" → calls get_skill with keyword search across all skills
"Check this code against the backend standards" → calls check_standards
"Scaffold a new microservice called inventory" → calls scaffold with your templates

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Adding Your Own Skills

Create a new .md file in any category folder under src/skills/
Optionally add an index.md to the category for an overview
Rebuild: npm run build
The skill is immediately available via list_skills and get_skill

Skill file format — just write Markdown. Include sections like:

# My Skill Name

## When to Use
...

## Rules
- Rule 1
- Rule 2

## Template
\```typescript
// code example
\```

The check_standards tool automatically extracts items from Rules, Standards, and Checklist sections.

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License

MIT

dev-skills