Add development environment setup documentation and tooling for MCP servers #119
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This commit adds comprehensive documentation and tooling for setting up a development environment to test MCP servers with ChatGPT over HTTPS. ## Overview Testing MCP servers with ChatGPT requires HTTPS with SSE support. This guide documents three tunneling approaches and provides a working solution using SSH reverse tunnels with nginx. ## Changes **Documentation:** - `docs/DEVELOPMENT.md` - Generic guide for MCP server development setup - `docs/setup/README.md` - Detailed step-by-step setup instructions - Includes concrete pizzaz example as implementation reference **Setup Scripts and Configs:** - `docs/setup/example-nginx-dev.conf` - nginx config with SSE optimization - `docs/setup/example-nginx-temp.conf` - Temporary config for SSL setup - `docs/setup/example-tunnel.service` - Systemd service for persistent tunneling - `docs/setup/vm-setup.sh` - Automated VM setup script **Testing Tools:** - `tests/test-mcp.ts` - MCP protocol validation suite - `tests/README.md` - Testing documentation and usage ## Key Features - **Generic approach**: Works with any MCP server in this repository - **Three tunneling approaches evaluated**: ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnels, SSH+nginx - **SSE-optimized nginx configuration**: Critical settings for MCP protocol - **Automated setup**: Scripts for quick VM configuration - **Pizzaz example**: Concrete implementation showing two-server architecture - **Security considerations**: Firewall, SSL, encrypted tunnels ## Lessons Documented - Port conflict resolution strategies - CAA DNS record requirements for Let's Encrypt - SSL certificate acquisition workflow - SSE buffering issues with various tunnel services - Firewall configuration for cloud VMs This enables developers to quickly set up a development environment for testing any MCP server in this repository with ChatGPT.
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Summary
Changes
Key Learnings Documented
Architecture
Supports both single-server and two-server architectures:
Target Audience
Developers who want to test their MCP servers locally with ChatGPT before production deployment.
Test Plan