🎯 Vestaflare - Vestaboard MCP Server

✨ A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for interacting with Vestaboard displays. This server provides tools to read current messages and post new content to your Vestaboard using VBML (Vestaboard Markup Language) formatting.

🎯 What This Server Provides

🔧 Vestaboard Integration: Full integration with Vestaboard Read/Write API
📱 VBML Support: Parse and convert VBML markup to character codes
⚡ MCP Protocol: Complete Model Context Protocol server implementation
🎨 Color Support: Use colored squares in your messages with VBML
🔄 Real-time Updates: Stream messages to your Vestaboard
💻 TypeScript Foundation: Fully typed codebase
📝 Example Client: Working examples to demonstrate usage

🚀 Quick Start

1. 📦 Clone and Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/octodemo/Vestaflare.git
cd Vestaflare

# Install dependencies
bun install

2. 🔧 Vestaboard Setup

Before using this server, you'll need to set up your Vestaboard authentication:

Get API Credentials: Visit Vestaboard Developer Portal
Choose Authentication Method:
- Read/Write Key (recommended): Simpler setup for personal use
- API Key + Secret: For applications requiring OAuth-style authentication

# Copy the example environment file
cp .env.example .env

# Edit .env with your Vestaboard credentials
# Add either:
#   VESTABOARD_READ_WRITE_KEY=your_read_write_key_here
# OR:
#   VESTABOARD_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
#   VESTABOARD_API_SECRET=your_api_secret_here
#   VESTABOARD_SUBSCRIPTION_ID=your_subscription_id_here

3. 💻 Local Development

# Build the project
bun run build

# Run locally with Bun
bun run start

# Or specify a custom port
bun run build/index.js --port=9000

🌐 The server will start at http://localhost:8123 by default.

4. ☁️ Cloudflare Workers Development

# Start local Workers development server
npm run dev:worker

# Build for Workers deployment
npm run build:worker

5. 🚀 Deploy to Cloudflare Workers

# Deploy to Cloudflare Workers (free tier)
npm run deploy

✅ Success! Your MCP server is now live on the edge! 🎉

🏗️ Core Architecture

🔄 Dual Runtime Support

This template is designed to work in both environments:

💻 Bun: Fast runtime with Express.js server for local development and traditional hosting
☁️ Cloudflare Workers: Optimized worker implementation for edge deployment

🧩 Key Components

├── src/
│   ├── index.ts           # 💻 Bun Express server entry point
│   ├── worker.ts          # ☁️ Cloudflare Workers entry point  
│   ├── worker-transport.ts # ⚡ Workers-optimized HTTP transport
│   ├── server.ts          # 🔧 Core MCP server implementation
├── example-client.js      # 🧪 Example client for testing
├── wrangler.toml         # ☁️ Cloudflare Workers configuration
├── tsconfig.json         # 💻 Bun TypeScript config
└── tsconfig.worker.json  # ☁️ Workers TypeScript config

🛠️ Available Tools

This server provides two main tools for Vestaboard interaction:

1. `get-current-message`

Retrieves the current message displayed on your Vestaboard.

Parameters: None

Example:

{
  "name": "get-current-message",
  "arguments": {}
}

2. `post-message`

Posts a new message to your Vestaboard with VBML support.

Parameters:

text (string, required): The message text to display
useVBML (boolean, optional): Whether to parse VBML formatting (default: true)

VBML Examples:

{red} - Red colored square
{blue} - Blue colored square
{yellow} - Yellow colored square
{green} - Green colored square
{orange} - Orange colored square
{violet} - Violet colored square
{white} - White colored square

Example:

{
  "name": "post-message",
  "arguments": {
    "text": "HELLO {red}\nWORLD!\n\nFrom Vestaflare",
    "useVBML": true
  }
}

✨ Using the Example Client

# Test the server with the included example client
node example-client.js

This will:

Initialize MCP connection
List available tools
Get current Vestaboard message
Post a test message with VBML formatting });


### 2. ☁️ Configure Workers Deployment

Update [`wrangler.toml`](wrangler.toml):

```toml
name = "your-mcp-server-name"
main = "src/worker.ts"
compatibility_date = "2024-12-06"

[vars]
# Add your environment variables
API_KEY = "your-api-key"

3. 📦 Update Package Metadata

Modify package.json:

{
  "name": "your-mcp-server",
  "description": "Your MCP server description",
  "version": "1.0.0"
}

🌐 API Endpoints

The server exposes a single MCP endpoint at /mcp:

📤 POST /mcp: Handle MCP JSON-RPC requests
📡 GET /mcp: Establish Server-Sent Events (SSE) stream for real-time notifications

📋 Example MCP Request

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "your-tool-name",
    "arguments": {
      "param1": "value1"
    }
  }
}

✨ Features

🔐 Security & Authentication

🔑 Optional API Key Authentication: Secure your MCP server with configurable API key authentication
🎛️ Flexible Authentication Formats: Support for both Bearer <token> and direct API key formats
🌍 Environment-Controlled: Enable/disable authentication via environment variables
🌐 CORS-Compatible: Proper CORS headers for cross-origin authentication

📡 Streaming HTTP Transport

⚡ Real-time Notifications: Server-Sent Events for live updates
👥 Multi-session Support: Handle multiple concurrent client connections
🔄 Dynamic Updates: Real-time tool and resource updates with client notifications

☁️ Cloudflare Workers Optimization

💰 Free Tier Compatible: Designed to work within Cloudflare Workers free tier limits
🌍 Edge Performance: Global edge deployment for low latency
🏗️ Serverless Architecture: Pay-per-request pricing model
⚡ Zero Cold Start: Optimized for fast startup times

🛠️ Development Experience

💻 TypeScript Support: Full type safety and IntelliSense
🔥 Hot Reload: Fast development iteration with wrangler dev
🚨 Error Handling: Comprehensive error handling and logging
🧪 Example Client: Ready-to-use client for testing with authentication examples

🧪 Testing Your Server

Use the included example client to test your implementation:

# Start your server
bun run build && bun run start

# In another terminal, test with the example client
node example-client.js

The example client demonstrates:

🔌 MCP connection initialization
🔍 Tool discovery and listing
⚙️ Tool execution with parameters
🚨 Error handling
🔐 Authentication examples (configure USE_AUTH and API_KEY in the client)

💡 Note: If you enable authentication on your server (MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED=true), make sure to update the authentication configuration in example-client.js by setting USE_AUTH=true and providing your API_KEY.

🚀 Deployment Options

☁️ Cloudflare Workers (Recommended)

💰 Free tier: 100,000 requests/day
🌍 Global edge: Low latency worldwide
🔧 Zero maintenance: Serverless infrastructure

🖥️ Traditional Hosting

💻 Bun: Deploy to any Bun-compatible hosting platform
🌐 Express.js: Full HTTP server capabilities
🎯 Custom domains: Complete control over deployment

🔧 Environment Variables

💻 Bun Development (.env file)

For local Bun development, copy .env.example to .env and configure:

# Copy the example file
cp .env.example .env

📋 Required Variables

PORT: Server port (default: 8123)
ENVIRONMENT: Current environment (development/production)

⚙️ Optional Variables

MCP_SERVER_NAME: Name of your MCP server (default: "mcp-server")
MCP_SERVER_VERSION: Version of your MCP server (default: "1.0.0")
MCP_SESSION_HEADER_NAME: Header name for session ID (default: "mcp-session-id")

🔐 Authentication Variables

MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED: Enable/disable API key authentication (true/false, default: false)
MCP_API_KEY: API key for client authentication (required if MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED=true)
MCP_AUTH_HEADER_NAME: Header name for API key (default: "Authorization")

🌤️ Weather API Configuration (for example weather tools)

WEATHER_API_BASE_URL: Weather API base URL (default: "https://api.weather.gov")
USER_AGENT: User agent string for API requests (default: "weather-app/1.0")

🔑 API Keys (configure as needed for your tools)

WEATHER_API_KEY: Weather service API key
OPENAI_API_KEY: OpenAI API key
GOOGLE_API_KEY: Google services API key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: Anthropic API key

🔗 External Services

DATABASE_URL: Database connection string
REDIS_URL: Redis connection string
EXTERNAL_API_URL: External API base URL

🌐 CORS Configuration

CORS_ORIGIN: Allowed origins (default: "*")
CORS_METHODS: Allowed HTTP methods (default: "GET, POST, OPTIONS")
CORS_HEADERS: Allowed headers (default: "Content-Type, mcp-session-id")

🎛️ Feature Flags

ENABLE_LOGGING: Enable detailed logging (true/false)
ENABLE_DEBUG_MODE: Enable debug mode (true/false)

☁️ Cloudflare Workers (.dev.vars file)

For Cloudflare Workers development, copy .dev.vars.example to .dev.vars and configure similarly.

💡 Note: The .env file is for Bun development, while .dev.vars is for Cloudflare Workers. Both files are ignored by git for security.

🔐 Authentication

This MCP server supports optional API key authentication to secure access to your server endpoints.

🔑 Enabling Authentication

Authentication is controlled by environment variables and is disabled by default. To enable authentication:

Set authentication environment variables in your .env file (Node.js) or .dev.vars file (Cloudflare Workers):

# Enable authentication
MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED=true

# Set your API key (keep this secure!)
MCP_API_KEY=your-secure-api-key-here

# Optional: customize the header name (default: Authorization)
MCP_AUTH_HEADER_NAME=Authorization

Restart your server after updating the environment variables.

🎯 Supported Authentication Formats

The server supports two authentication formats:

🏷️ Bearer Token Format (Recommended)

Authorization: Bearer your-api-key-here

🔑 Direct API Key Format

Authorization: your-api-key-here

💻 Client Implementation

When authentication is enabled, clients must include the API key in their requests:

// Example client code with authentication
const headers = {
  'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  'Authorization': 'Bearer your-api-key-here'  // or just 'your-api-key-here'
};

const response = await fetch('http://localhost:8123/mcp', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: headers,
  body: JSON.stringify(mcpRequest)
});

📋 Authentication Responses

✅ 200 OK: Request successful (valid API key or authentication disabled)
❌ 401 Unauthorized: Invalid or missing API key when authentication is required

Example error response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "error": {
    "code": -32600,
    "message": "Unauthorized: Invalid or missing API key"
  },
  "id": null
}

🔒 Security Best Practices

🔐 Keep API keys secure: Never commit API keys to version control
🌍 Use environment variables: Store API keys in .env files that are gitignored
🔒 Use HTTPS in production: Always use HTTPS when deploying to production
🔄 Rotate keys regularly: Change API keys periodically for better security
🏷️ Use Bearer format: The Bearer <token> format is the recommended standard

❌ Disabling Authentication

To disable authentication (default behavior):

# In .env or .dev.vars
MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED=false
# or simply omit the MCP_AUTH_REQUIRED variable

When authentication is disabled, the server will accept all requests without checking for API keys.

📄 License

ISC

🎯 Next Steps

🔧 Customize Tools: Replace the example tools with your specific functionality
☁️ Configure Deployment: Update wrangler.toml with your project details
🧪 Test Locally: Use the example client to verify your implementation
🚀 Deploy: Push to Cloudflare Workers free tier
🔌 Connect: Integrate with MCP-compatible clients

🎉 This template provides everything you need to build, test, and deploy production-ready MCP servers with minimal setup time! ✨

Built with ❤️ for the MCP community

🚀 Get Started • 📖 Documentation • 🛠️ Features • 🔧 Customization

License

octodemo/Vestaflare

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