aadc-audit-mcp

A local MCP server (and CLI) that audits a software project against the UK ICO Age Appropriate Design Code (the Children's Code, AADC), the statutorily-enforceable framework that governs any online service "likely to be accessed by children" in the UK.

Runs entirely on your machine over stdio. Your source code never leaves the device.

What it does

Fifteen MCP tools, all local-only: twelve individual audits, plus audit_all, list_standards, and read_standard.

Related MCP server: depguard

Install

npm install -g aadc-audit-mcp

Then add to your MCP client config. For Claude Code, edit ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aadc": {
      "command": "aadc"
    }
  }
}

For Claude Desktop, edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aadc": {
      "command": "aadc"
    }
  }
}

That's it. Claude will now offer the fifteen aadc.* tools whenever you're working in a project that looks like it might be accessed by children.

CLI mode (no MCP needed)

The same binary doubles as a CLI:

aadc audit ./your-project              # all audits → exit 0 or 1
aadc audit:permissions ./your-project  # one audit
aadc standards                         # list 15 AADC standards
aadc help

Useful for GitHub Actions or any CI that doesn't have Claude in the loop. See workflows/aadc-ci.yml for a drop-in.

Per-project allowlist overrides

Each project has different legitimate dependencies and permissions. Override via env vars (work for both MCP server and CLI):

export AADC_PERM_ALLOWLIST_IOS="NSMicrophoneUsageDescription NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription"
export AADC_PERM_ALLOWLIST_ANDROID="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO ..."
export AADC_SDK_ALLOWLIST_FLUTTER="flutter just_audio webview_flutter ..."
export AADC_SDK_ALLOWLIST_NPM="@cloudflare/workers-types wrangler ..."
export AADC_SDK_ALLOWLIST_PYTHON="fastapi pydantic ..."
export AADC_PROTECTED_PATHS="path/to/sensitive/code/dir ..."

aadc audit .

When called via MCP, the same overrides can be passed as allowlists.{ios,android,flutter,npm,python,protectedPaths} in the tool arguments — useful when Claude is running the audit on behalf of a project with project-specific allowlists.

Why MCP, why local, why kid-app-specific

• Local-only is the whole point. A compliance tool that uploads your source code to a third-party SaaS is a non-starter for a kids-app product. The MCP runs as a subprocess on the user's machine and never reaches the network.

• MCP gives Claude (or any MCP-capable AI client) structured function calls. Instead of "Claude reads your repo and tries to remember the AADC", Claude calls aadc.audit_all and gets a machine-shaped result it can paste straight into a PR description, GitHub issue, or conformance statement.

• Kid-app-specific because the existing compliance market is enterprise-only. Paid third-party auditors (TestPros, BBB National Programs) start at five figures. Enterprise compliance SaaS (OneTrust, Securiti AI) assumes you have a legal team to configure them. Small clinical / educational kids apps need a drop-in toolkit. This is that toolkit.

What it doesn't do

• Doesn't make legal warranties. Best-effort technical scaffolding. A regulator query may still require a paid third-party auditor.

• Doesn't automate the 6 judgement-based standards (1 best-interests, 2 DPIA, 3 age-appropriate application, 12 profiling, 13 nudges, 15 online tools). For those, use the conformance-statement template under templates/ and let Claude fill it in by reading your code + the ICO text.

Repo contents

aadc-audit-mcp/
├── README.md, LICENSE
├── package.json, tsconfig.json
├── src/
│   ├── cli.ts                 (dual-mode entry: MCP server OR CLI)
│   ├── server.ts              (MCP server: 15 tools)
│   ├── standards.ts           (ICO AADC text loader)
│   └── audits/                (12 audit modules + support files)
│       ├── index.ts           (registry)
│       ├── types.ts           (AuditResult, AuditOptions)
│       ├── walk.ts            (fs traversal)
│       ├── permissions.ts     (Standards 8, 10)
│       ├── sdks.ts            (Standards 5, 9, 12, 13)
│       ├── launchurl.ts       (Standards 11, 14)
│       ├── network-isolation.ts (Standard 8)
│       ├── defaults.ts        (Standard 7)
│       ├── reading-grade.ts   (Standards 4, 11)
│       ├── placeholders.ts    (Standards 4, 6)
│       ├── link-reachability.ts (Standards 4, 6)
│       ├── volume-cap.ts      (Standards 1, 14)
│       ├── sentry-hygiene.ts  (Standards 7, 9)
│       ├── hardcoded-url.ts   (Standards 4, 6)
│       └── policy-mentions-sdks.ts (Standards 4, 9)
├── aadc/                      (canonical ICO text mirror)
│   ├── 1-best-interests-of-the-child.md
│   ├── ... (15 standards + executive summary)
│   └── fetch.sh               (refresh from ico.org.uk)
├── templates/
│   ├── AUDIT.md
│   ├── conformance-statement.md
│   ├── privacy-policy.md
│   └── incident-response.md
├── workflows/
│   └── aadc-ci.yml            (drop-in GitHub Actions workflow)
├── examples/
│   └── README.md              (per-language overrides cookbook)
└── legacy-bash/
    └── ...                    (original bash implementation; kept for
                                projects that can't depend on Node)

Related jurisdictions

The 15 standards are broadly aligned with the new US state laws modelled on the UK AADC (California, South Carolina, Vermont, Nebraska, Maryland as of 2026). The audits here are a good starting point in those jurisdictions, but state-specific deltas should be reviewed separately.

Licence

MIT. The ICO Children's Code text mirrored under aadc/ is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See LICENSE.

Contributing

The most useful contributions:

• More language adapters (the audits cover Flutter, Node, Python today; React Native specifics, iOS-Swift-only, Android-Kotlin- only, .NET MAUI would all help).

• New checks aligned to AADC standards we haven't automated (Standard 13 nudge-pattern detector especially).

• Diff-against-ICO improvements to aadc/fetch.sh so wording drift surfaces as a structured PR.

• Integration tests against a fixture project tree.

Open issues / PRs at https://github.com/Paul-PSDigital/aadc-audit-mcp.

aadc-audit-mcp