RenewCMS/docs/mcp.md

MCP server

cmd/mcp builds renewcms-mcp, a stdio MCP server for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and similar clients. It is an HTTP client of the public API: it holds no database access and sends the API key as Authorization: Bearer, so what the key's user may do is the limit of what the model may do.

Build it with task build:mcp (bin/renewcms-mcp).

Configuration

Name	Description
RENEWCMS_URL	Address of the instance, for example https://cms.example.
RENEWCMS_API_KEY	An API key created at /integration/api-keys.

They belong to the MCP binary only and are not server variables.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "renewcms": {
      "command": "/path/to/renewcms-mcp",
      "env": { "RENEWCMS_URL": "https://cms.example", "RENEWCMS_API_KEY": "rcms_..." }
    }
  }
}

Tools

list_articles, get_article, create_article (always a draft), update_article_body, publish_article, check_seo, list_media, upload_media (local path, or base64 with filename), list_sites, get_sitemap.

--allow-destructive adds delete_article and delete_media.

Routes that need a browser session, such as creating a site, are not exposed. API errors come back as tool errors with the status and the plain-text message.

Why it calls the HTTP API

renewcms-mcp runs on the machine of the person using the model (Claude Desktop, Cursor), usually not on the server, and talks to a remote instance. Calling the use cases directly would need the database, the storage and the secrets of the instance in that process, and would skip what the HTTP layer enforces for every client: API-key authentication and its rate limit, the role permissions checked by the router middleware, the activity context, validation of the request bodies and the plain-text error contract. Going through the published routes keeps the model inside the same limits as any API key and keeps one contract to test. It uses the authenticated routes (/v1/article, /v1/media, /v1/site), not the public /v1/public routes, so drafts stay reachable for the key's user. Running it in-process with the server is not supported.

Resources and prompts

The resource renewcms://docs/llms-full.txt is the instance's own /llms-full.txt, so the model reads the documentation of the exact version it talks to. The prompt write_and_publish_article drafts, checks the SEO and asks before publishing.