Provides specialized tools to transform and downgrade Adaptive Cards for Cisco Webex, ensuring compatibility with version 1.3 constraints by removing unsupported elements such as Tables and specific Action types.
Adaptive Cards MCP
An MCP server that helps AI assistants generate valid, accessible Adaptive Cards for Teams, Outlook, Copilot, and other Microsoft surfaces. 9 tools, 3 guided workflows, 924 tests.
Blog: I Built an MCP Server That Makes AI 10x Better at Adaptive Cards
Demo
Quick Start
No install needed — npx downloads and runs it automatically.
1. Add to your AI assistant
claude mcp add adaptive-cards-mcp -- npx adaptive-cards-mcpAdd to .vscode/mcp.json:
{
"servers": {
"adaptive-cards-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
}
}
}Add to .cursor/mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"adaptive-cards-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
}
}
}Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"adaptive-cards-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
}
}
}TRANSPORT=sse PORT=3001 npx adaptive-cards-mcp
# With auth enabled
TRANSPORT=sse MCP_API_KEY=your-secret npx adaptive-cards-mcpOpen Copilot Studio → your agent → Tools → Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol
Enter your MCP server URL (e.g.,
https://your-server.azurewebsites.net/sse)Select the tools to expose
Enable Developer mode in ChatGPT settings
Go to Settings → Connectors → Create
Enter your MCP server HTTPS URL
2. Start using it
Just ask your AI assistant in natural language:
> Create an expense approval card for Teams> Convert this JSON data into an Adaptive Card table> Validate this card and fix accessibility issues> Make this card work on Outlook (v1.4)The AI picks the right tools, generates a valid card, validates it, and returns production-ready JSON you can paste directly into the Adaptive Cards Designer to preview.
Usage
Natural language (recommended)
Describe what you need — the AI figures out which tools to call:
Approvals and workflows:
> Create an expense approval card for Teams with requester photo, amount,
category, line items, and approve/reject/comment buttons> Build a time-off request card — employee name, dates, remaining PTO balance,
manager approval with optional rejection reasonNotifications and alerts:
> Create a CI/CD deployment notification: service name, environment, build number,
commit SHA, deploy status with rollback button> Generate a PagerDuty-style incident alert card — severity P1, affected service,
start time, on-call engineer, acknowledge/escalate actionsData and reports:
> Here's our Q1 sales data, turn it into a card:
[{"region":"APAC","revenue":1250000,"growth":"12%"},
{"region":"EMEA","revenue":980000,"growth":"8%"},
{"region":"Americas","revenue":2100000,"growth":"15%"}]> Convert this CSV to a card:
Employee,Department,Start Date,Status
Jane Kim,Engineering,2026-01-15,Active
Bob Lee,Design,2026-02-01,Active
Carol Wu,PM,2026-03-10,OnboardingForms and input:
> Create an employee onboarding checklist — new hire name, start date,
assigned buddy, IT setup tasks with checkboxes, and a submit button> Build a customer feedback survey card with a 1-5 star rating,
comment field, and NPS score dropdownProfiles and status:
> Create a team member profile card with photo, name, title, department,
skills tags, and contact buttons for email/chat/calendar> Build a service health dashboard card showing 5 microservices
with status indicators (healthy/degraded/down) and last check timeCross-host and versioning:
> This card works in Teams but breaks in Outlook — fix it
> Make this card work on Webex (v1.3 only, no Table, no Action.Execute)
> Downgrade this v1.6 card to v1.4 for Viva ConnectionsValidation and optimization:
> Validate this card and tell me what's wrong — I'm getting render errors
> Make this card accessible — it needs to work with screen readers
> This card is too complex, optimize it for performance and compact layoutWhat you say | What the AI calls |
"Create a leave approval card for Teams" |
|
"Here's my API response, make it a card" |
|
"Is this card valid for Outlook?" |
|
"Make this card accessible" |
|
"Convert this card to a reusable template" |
|
"This card needs to work on v1.3" |
|
"What layout should I use for a dashboard?" |
|
Slash commands (MCP prompts)
For guided, multi-step workflows, use the built-in prompts directly:
Create a card:
> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
description: "Expense approval with requester photo, line items table, total amount,
and approve/reject buttons with comment field"
host: teams
intent: approvalRuns: generate → validate → optimize → host config
> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
description: "CI/CD deployment notification with service name, environment,
build number, status badge, and rollback action"
host: teams
intent: notification> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
description: "Employee profile card with photo, name, title, department,
contact info, and skills tags"
host: outlook
intent: profileConvert data to a card:
> /adaptive-cards-mcp:convert-data-to-card
data: [
{ "task": "Review PR #482", "assignee": "Jane", "due": "2026-03-21", "status": "pending" },
{ "task": "Deploy hotfix v2.1.3", "assignee": "Bob", "due": "2026-03-19", "status": "in-progress" },
{ "task": "Update API docs", "assignee": "Carol", "due": "2026-03-22", "status": "done" }
]
title: "Sprint Tasks"
presentation: table> /adaptive-cards-mcp:convert-data-to-card
data: { "service": "api-gateway", "cpu": "92%", "memory": "78%", "requests": "12.4k/min",
"p99_latency": "245ms", "error_rate": "0.3%", "uptime": "99.97%" }
title: "Service Health — api-gateway"
presentation: factsRuns: analyze data → pick best layout → validate output
Review an existing card:
> /adaptive-cards-mcp:review-adaptive-card
card: { "type": "AdaptiveCard", "version": "1.6", "body": [...your card...] }
host: outlookRuns: validate schema + accessibility → auto-fix issues → summary report
npm library (programmatic)
For use in your own code (bots, APIs, CI pipelines), install the package:
npm install adaptive-cards-mcpimport { generateCard, validateCardFull, dataToCard, optimizeCard } from 'adaptive-cards-mcp';
const result = await generateCard({
content: "Create a flight status card",
host: "teams",
intent: "display"
});
console.log(result.card); // Adaptive Card JSON
console.log(result.cardId); // Reference ID for subsequent calls
console.log(result.validation); // Schema + accessibility + host compatSee the Library API reference for full details.
What you get back
Card-producing tools return two clean blocks — card JSON you can copy, and a metadata summary:
```json
{
"type": "AdaptiveCard",
"version": "1.6",
"body": [ ... ],
"actions": [ ... ]
}
```
---
**Validation:** Valid
**Accessibility Score:** 100/100
**Elements:** 7 | **Nesting Depth:** 2 | **Version:** 1.6
**Card ID:** card-abc123
**Steps:** generate → validate → optimize
**Try it out:** Paste the card JSON into the [Adaptive Cards Designer](https://adaptivecards.microsoft.com/designer)
**Local Preview:** file:///tmp/ac-preview-xyz.htmlTools, Prompt and Usage
Reference
MCP Tools (9)
Tool | Description |
| Natural language / data → valid Adaptive Card v1.6 JSON |
| Schema validation + accessibility score + host compatibility + suggested fixes |
| Auto-select Table / FactSet / Chart / List from data shape |
| Improve accessibility, performance, modernize actions |
| Static card → |
| Version upgrade/downgrade, host-config adaptation |
| Recommend best layout pattern for a description |
| Generate + validate + optionally optimize in one call |
| Multi-step pipeline: generate → optimize → template → transform |
MCP Prompts (3)
Prompt | Pipeline | Slash command |
| generate → validate → optimize → host config |
|
| validate → auto-fix → before/after report |
|
| analyze data → pick presentation → validate |
|
MCP Resources (5) + Templates (2)
Resource | Description |
| Complete JSON Schema for Adaptive Cards v1.6 |
| Host compatibility matrix for all 7 hosts |
| Single host compatibility info |
| 36 curated example cards catalog |
| Examples filtered by intent |
| 21 canonical layout patterns |
| Session card store (cards by cardId) |
Host Compatibility
Host | Max Version | Notes |
Generic | 1.6 | Default — no host-specific constraints |
Teams | 1.6 | Max 6 actions, Action.Execute preferred |
Outlook | 1.4 | Limited elements, max 4 actions |
Web Chat | 1.6 | Full support |
Windows | 1.6 | Subset of elements |
Viva Connections | 1.4 | SPFx-based ACE framework |
Webex | 1.3 | No Table, no Action.Execute |
Configuration
Environment Variable | Description | Default |
| Transport mode: |
|
| HTTP port for SSE transport |
|
| API key for HTTP auth | (disabled) |
| Auth mode: | (disabled) |
| Anthropic Claude API key | (deterministic mode) |
| OpenAI API key | (deterministic mode) |
| Azure OpenAI API key | (disabled) |
| Azure OpenAI endpoint URL | (disabled) |
| Ollama local model URL | (disabled) |
| Enable debug logging: | (disabled) |
| Enable rate limiting: |
|
| Enable metrics collection: |
|
Note: When used via MCP (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor), the host LLM provides the intelligence — no API key needed. Set an API key only for standalone/library usage.
Development
cd packages/core
npm install
npm run build # TypeScript + copy data files
npm test # 924 tests (vitest)
npm run test:coverage # With coverage report
npm run lint # TypeScript type check
npm run lint:eslint # ESLint check
npm run format # Prettier formattingLocal Testing
Smoke test all tools and prompts:
./test-mcp-tools.sh --local # 28 tests — all 9 tools with real-world scenarios
./test-mcp-prompts.sh --local # 10 tests — all 3 prompts (guided workflows)
./test-mcp-tools.sh # same tests against published npm package
./test-mcp-prompts.sh # same tests against published npm packageMCP Inspector (visual UI):
cd packages/core && npm run build
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/server.js
# Opens http://localhost:6274 — pick a tool, enter params, click RunTerminal (stdio):
cd packages/core
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"test","version":"1.0"}}}
{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"generate_card","arguments":{"content":"expense approval card","intent":"approval","host":"teams"}}}' \
| node dist/server.js 2>/dev/null | tail -1 | python3 -m json.toolSSE mode:
TRANSPORT=sse PORT=3001 node packages/core/dist/server.js
curl http://localhost:3001/healthArchitecture
packages/core/src/
├── server.ts # MCP server (stdio + SSE, 9 tools, 3 prompts)
├── index.ts # Library exports
├── types/ # TypeScript interfaces
├── core/ # Schema validator, analyzer, accessibility, host compat
├── generation/ # 21 layout patterns, data analyzer, assembler, LLM client
├── tools/ # 9 tool handlers
├── utils/ # Logger, input guards, rate limiter, card store, auth, telemetry, preview
└── data/ # v1.6 schema, 36 examples, host configsEcosystem
Package | Description |
MCP server + npm library (9 tools) — npm | |
VS Code extension — adaptive-cards-ai-vscode |
What's New in v2.3.0
Accessibility 100/100 — All generated cards now include
speakproperty automaticallyNo more broken JSON — Newlines in content sanitized, titles no longer truncate at version numbers
Host-aware generation —
generate_and_validateauto-downgrades card version for Outlook (v1.4), Webex (v1.3)CSV fix — CSV data correctly parsed before building FactSet/Table cards
Telemetry —
/metricsendpoint with session tracking, per-tool call distribution, host/intent usageMCP Registry — Listed on the official MCP Registry
E2E test suite — 28 tool tests + 10 prompt tests with quality gates (a11y score, element count)
See the full CHANGELOG for details.
Links
npm — Install and package details
GitHub — Source code, issues, and contributions
MCP Registry — Official MCP server listing
Related Projects
AdaptiveCards-Mobile — Cross-platform Adaptive Cards renderer
openclaw-adaptive-cards — OpenClaw AI agent plugin using this library
Adaptive Cards Documentation — Official docs
Adaptive Cards Designer — Interactive card designer
Adaptive Cards Schema Explorer — Interactive schema reference
License
MIT