Advanced MCP Features

Prerequisites

• JavaScript/TypeScript experience
• Node.js experience
• Advanced MCP Features or equivalent experience.

Pre-workshop Resources

Here are some resources you can read before taking the workshop to get you up to speed on some of the tools and concepts we'll be covering:

• Letting AI Interface with Your App with MCPs
• MCP Introduction
• Your AI Assistant Instructor: The EpicShop MCP Server
• How to Debug Your MCP Server

System Requirements

• git v2.18 or greater
• NodeJS v22.13.0 or greater
• npm v8.16.0 or greater

All of these must be available in your PATH. To verify things are set up properly, you can run this:

If you have trouble with any of these, learn more about the PATH environment variable and how to fix it here for windows or mac/linux.

Setup

This is a pretty large project (it's actually many apps in one) so it can take several minutes to get everything set up the first time. Please have a strong network connection before running the setup and grab a snack.

Warning: This repo is very large. Make sure you have a good internet connection before you start the setup process. The instructions below use --depth to limit the amount you download, but if you have a slow connection, or you pay for bandwidth, you may want to find a place with a better connection.

Follow these steps to get this set up:

To make sure your environment is running correctly, please follow these additional steps:

1. Run the workshop app with npm start
2. Open the last exercise solution at /exercise/05/02/solution?preview=solution
3. Click the "Start App" button
4. Click the "Connect" button

You'll know it's working if you see a green dot and the word "Connected" in the MCP Inspector app.

If you experience errors during this setup process, please open an issue with as many details as you can offer.

The Workshop App

Learn all about the workshop app on the Epic Web Getting Started Guide.