Integrations
Integration with Amazon S3 for storing error records, providing cloud-based storage for the knowledge database through the S3Storage implementation
Supports Docker-based deployment using docker-compose for containerized production environments
Provides a REST API interface using FastAPI with endpoints for creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting error records
Tribal - Knowledge Service
Tribal is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server implementation for error knowledge tracking and retrieval. It provides both REST API and native MCP interfaces for integration with tools like Claude Code and Cline.
Features
- Store and retrieve error records with full context
- Vector similarity search using ChromaDB
- REST API (FastAPI) and native MCP interfaces
- JWT authentication with API keys
- Local storage (ChromaDB) and AWS integration
- Docker-compose deployment
- CLI client integration
Overview
Tribal helps Claude remember and learn from programming errors. When you start a Claude Code session, Tribal is automatically available through MCP without additional imports.
Claude will:
- Store programming errors and solutions
- Search for similar errors when you encounter problems
- Build a knowledge base specific to your coding patterns
Packaging and Installing Tribal with uv
Prerequisites
- Python 3.12+
- uv package manager (recommended)
Build and Install Steps
Option 1: Direct installation with uv
The simplest approach is to install directly from the current directory:
Option 2: Development Installation
For development work where you want changes to be immediately reflected:
Option 3: Build the package first
If you want to build a distributable package:
Option 4: Using the uv tool install
command
You can also use the tool installation approach:
Verification
After installation, verify that the tool is properly installed:
Integration with Claude
After installation, you can integrate with Claude:
Usage
Available MCP Tools
Tribal provides these MCP tools:
add_error
- Create new error record (POST /errors)get_error
- Retrieve error by UUID (GET /errors/{id})update_error
- Modify existing error (PUT /errors/{id})delete_error
- Remove error record (DELETE /errors/{id})search_errors
- Find errors by criteria (GET /errors)find_similar
- Semantic similarity search (GET /errors/similar)get_token
- Obtain JWT token (POST /token)
Example Usage with Claude
When Claude encounters an error:
When Claude finds a solution:
Commands for Claude
You can ask Claude to:
- "Look for similar errors in our Tribal knowledge base"
- "Store this solution to our error database"
- "Check if we've seen this error before"
Running the Server
Using the tribal command
Using Python modules
Using legacy entry points
Command-line Options
The FastAPI server will be available at http://localhost:8000 with API documentation at /docs. The MCP server will be available at http://localhost:5000 for Claude and other MCP-compatible LLMs.
Environment Variables
FastAPI Server
PERSIST_DIRECTORY
: ChromaDB storage path (default: "./chroma_db")API_KEY
: Authentication key (default: "dev-api-key")SECRET_KEY
: JWT signing key (default: "insecure-dev-key-change-in-production")REQUIRE_AUTH
: Authentication requirement (default: "false")PORT
: Server port (default: 8000)
MCP Server
MCP_API_URL
: FastAPI server URL (default: "http://localhost:8000")MCP_PORT
: MCP server port (default: 5000)MCP_HOST
: Host to bind to (default: "0.0.0.0")API_KEY
: FastAPI access key (default: "dev-api-key")AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
,AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
,AWS_S3_BUCKET
: For AWS integration
API Endpoints
POST /errors
: Create new error recordGET /errors/{error_id}
: Get error by IDPUT /errors/{error_id}
: Update error recordDELETE /errors/{error_id}
: Delete errorGET /errors
: Search errors by criteriaGET /errors/similar
: Find similar errorsPOST /token
: Get authentication token
Using the Client
How It Works
- Tribal uses ChromaDB to store error records and solutions
- When Claude encounters an error, it sends the error details to Tribal
- Tribal vectorizes the error and searches for similar ones
- Claude gets back relevant solutions to suggest
- New solutions are stored for future reference
Development
Running Tests
Linting and Type Checking
GitHub Workflow
This project uses GitHub Actions for continuous integration and deployment. The workflow automatically runs tests, linting, and type checking on push to main and pull requests.
Workflow Steps
- Test: Runs linting, type checking, and unit tests
- Uses Python 3.12
- Installs dependencies with uv
- Runs ruff, black, mypy, and pytest
- Build and Publish: Builds and publishes the package to PyPI
- Triggered only on push to main branch
- Uses Python's build system
- Publishes to PyPI using twine
Testing Locally
You can test the GitHub workflow locally using the provided script:
This script simulates the GitHub workflow steps on your local machine:
- Checks Python version (3.12 recommended)
- Installs dependencies using uv
- Runs linting with ruff
- Checks formatting with black
- Runs type checking with mypy
- Runs tests with pytest
- Builds the package
Note: The script skips the publishing step for local testing.
Project Structure
Versioning
Tribal follows Semantic Versioning. See VERSIONING.md for complete details about:
- Version numbering (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH)
- Schema versioning for database compatibility
- Branch naming conventions
- Release and hotfix procedures
Check the version with:
Managing Dependencies
Deployment
Docker Deployment
Claude for Desktop Integration
Option 1: Let Claude for Desktop Launch the Server
- Open
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
- Add the MCP server configuration (assumes Tribal tool is already installed):Copy
- Restart Claude for Desktop
Option 2: Connect to Running Docker Container
- Start the container:Copy
- Configure Claude for Desktop:Copy
Claude Code CLI Integration
Troubleshooting
- Verify Tribal installation:
which tribal
- Check configuration:
claude mcp list
- Test server status:
tribal status
- Look for error messages in the Claude output
- Check the database directory exists and has proper permissions
Cloud Deployment
The project includes placeholder implementations for AWS services:
S3Storage
: For storing error records in Amazon S3DynamoDBStorage
: For using DynamoDB as the database
License
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An MCP server implementation that helps Claude remember and learn from programming errors by storing, retrieving, and finding similar errors with full context.
- Features
- Overview
- Packaging and Installing Tribal with uv
- Usage
- Development
- Versioning
- Deployment
- Troubleshooting
- Cloud Deployment
- License