AI Tutor MCP Toolkit

A client-server project built on the Model-Context-Protocol (MCP).

• server.py — a Gradio app exposing four OpenAI-powered, streaming tutoring tools over MCP: explain_concept, summarize_text, generate_flashcards, and quiz_me.

• client.py — connects to that server over SSE, fetches its tool schema at runtime (no hardcoded tool definitions), and runs an OpenAI Agent that picks the right tool for each user request in an interactive chat loop.

Why this project is interesting

Most "agent" demos hardcode which functions an LLM can call. Here the client discovers the server's tools dynamically by fetching its MCP schema at startup — the same pattern a real multi-service agent platform would use, so the server could add or change tools without the client's code changing.

Related MCP server: OpenAI Assistant MCP Server

Project structure

.
├── server.py           # MCP server — the 4 tutoring tools + Gradio UI
├── client.py            # MCP client — schema discovery + OpenAI Agent + chat loop
├── requirements.txt
├── .env.example          # copy to .env and add your key
└── .gitignore

Setup

py -3.11 -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\activate
py -3.11 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy .env.example to .env and add your key:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

Never commit .env — it's already in .gitignore.

Run

You need two terminals, since the server and client are separate processes.

Terminal 1 — start the server:

py -3.11 -m python server.py

Wait until you see:

Starting AI Tutor MCP Toolkit on port 7860...
* Running on local URL:  http://0.0.0.0:7860
🔨 Launching MCP server:
* Streamable HTTP URL: http://localhost:7860/gradio_api/mcp/

Terminal 2 — start the client:

py -3.11 -m python client.py

It will fetch the server's schema, print it, then drop you into a chat loop:

User: explain agentic AI tools like I'm 10
Assistant: ...

Type exit or quit to stop. At the end it prints every tool the agent called during the session and the arguments it used — useful for verifying the agent picked the right tool.

Available tools

You can also try the tools directly through the Gradio UI at http://localhost:7860 without going through the agent at all.

Troubleshooting

• Could not reach the MCP server / connection errors in the client — make sure server.py is running first, in its own terminal, and that nothing else is using port 7860.

• ModuleNotFoundError — you likely installed dependencies into a different Python than the one running the script. Use py -3.11 -m pip install -r requirements.txt and py -3.11 -m python server.py / client.py consistently.

• ImportError from inside the openai package — usually a corrupted or version-mismatched install. Fix with:

  py -3.11 -m pip install --force-reinstall --no-cache-dir openai

• Errors only inside a tool call (e.g. explain_concept) but the server starts fine — check that OPENAI_API_KEY is actually loaded (.env in the same folder as server.py) and that your OpenAI account has quota.

Notes

• Tools stream tokens (yield partial) rather than returning one blocking response — this is what gives the low-latency, "typing" feel in the UI.

• The agent's system prompt instructs it to return only JSON with tool and arguments when calling a tool, and to answer directly in plain language when no tool fits — worth reading client.py's AGENT_INSTRUCTIONS if you want to see the full prompt design.