ds-directory-mcp

Self-hosted, free-tier semantic search (RAG) + MCP server for external design system documentation. Replaces keyword-based search (e.g. Google Programmable Search) with intent-based vector search over design tokens, component architectures, and code patterns — exposed to any MCP-compatible AI assistant via one tool: design_system_directory.

Scope: this is not the XUI MCP

XUI already has its own structured, purpose-built MCP server (xui-components-mcp — list_components, get_component_docs). Use that for anything XUI: it knows props, variants, and exact component structure directly from the source.

ds-directory-mcp covers everything XUI doesn't have a server for — Material, Atlassian, Shopify Polaris, Carbon, Ant Design, Fluent, etc. — useful for cross-system research ("how do other systems handle X") and for informing XUI's own design decisions with outside context. Register both MCP servers with your assistant and let it pick the right one per query; don't index XUI here, and don't expect exact prop-level accuracy from this server the way you'd get from xui-components-mcp — this is semantic similarity search over crawled docs, not a structured component API.

Related MCP server: linked-docs

Architecture

[Phase 1: Ingestion]  ──>  [Phase 2: Storage & Search]  ──>  [Phase 3: MCP Gateway]
 ingest.py (crawl,             Qdrant Cloud                    server.py
 chunk, embed)                 (vector DB, free tier)          (FastMCP, Render free tier)

Setup

1. Create a free Qdrant Cloud cluster and a Jina AI API key.

2. python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate

3. pip install -r requirements.txt

4. cp .env.example .env and fill in QDRANT_URL, QDRANT_API_KEY, JINA_API_KEY.

Ingesting a design system

python ingest.py "Xero XUI" https://xui.xero.com/components/button

Crawls same-domain links from the given start URL(s), strips nav/footer/script noise, chunks text (800 chars, 100 overlap), embeds each chunk, and upserts into the design_system_index Qdrant collection with {url, design_system_name, text_content} payloads.

Running the MCP server locally

python server.py

Serves design_system_directory(user_query: str) over Streamable HTTP.

Adding design systems

Register each one in systems.yaml (name + start URL(s)) instead of typing the command by hand each time:

python ingest.py --system "Shopify Polaris"   # one entry from the registry
python ingest.py --all                        # every entry in the registry

Re-running a system deletes its previously indexed chunks first (matched by design_system_name), so re-ingestion replaces stale content instead of piling up duplicates. XUI is deliberately not registered here — see "Scope" above.

Automated re-indexing (GitHub Actions, free)

.github/workflows/reindex.yml runs python ingest.py --all on a weekly cron (also triggerable manually via "Run workflow"). This runs on GitHub's free Actions minutes — no always-on server needed, unlike the MCP server itself. Set these as repo secrets (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions), never commit them:

• QDRANT_URL

• QDRANT_API_KEY

• JINA_API_KEY

Render hosts the always-on MCP query server; GitHub Actions handles the periodic batch re-crawl — different lifecycles, so they're split across two free hosts.

Deploying (Render free tier)

render.yaml is included — connect this repo in the Render dashboard ("New +" → "Blueprint"), and set QDRANT_URL, QDRANT_API_KEY, JINA_API_KEY as secrets in the service's environment settings (never commit them). Render's free tier sleeps on idle — the first request after a period of inactivity will be slow ("cold start"); surface a loading state for this in any client UI.

Notes

• Secrets live only in environment variables (local .env, or the host's dashboard) — never in git.

• Ingestion sleeps 1s between page fetches to respect target servers.

• At 768 dimensions, ~100k vectors uses ~300MB — comfortably under Qdrant's 1GB RAM ceiling.