cerif-mcp

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for CERIF 1.6 — understand, validate, generate and transform research information in the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF).

npm License: MIT Node

cerif-mcp gives any MCP-capable AI assistant a complete working knowledge of the CERIF 1.6 data model and the ability to produce schema-valid CERIF XML. It bundles the official euroCRIS CERIF_1.6_2.xsd and validates against it fully in-process — no external service, no Java, no network at runtime.

It works with Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, Kilo, opencode, Cline, Cursor, and any other MCP client.

What is CERIF?

CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) is the open standard data model for research information, maintained by euroCRIS. It is the backbone of CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) and of research-evaluation and open-science data flows across Europe and beyond.

CERIF 1.6 defines 293 entities: 19 core entities (Person, Organisation Unit, Project, Funding, Result Publication/Patent/Product, Event, Facility, Equipment, Service, …), 161 linking entities (relationships such as cfProj_Pers or cfOrgUnit_Class), 71 language-dependent attributes (names, titles, abstracts, keywords), and 42 supporting entities (classification schemes and terms, languages, countries, currencies, federated identifiers, addresses, Dublin Core, …).

Features

15 tools in 7 families

Family	Tool	Purpose
Knowledge	`list_entities`	Browse the 293-entity catalog, filter by kind, search
Knowledge	`get_entity`	Full definition of one entity (children, links, id)
Knowledge	`list_schemes`	Canonical classification schemes (vocabularies)
Knowledge	`get_scheme`	Full term list of a classification scheme
Validation	`validate_xml`	Validate CERIF 1.6 XML against the official XSD
Validation	`validate_file`	Validate a CERIF 1.6 XML file on disk
Generation	`build_entity`	Generate a `<cfXxx>` entity fragment
Generation	`build_link`	Generate a linking entity (e.g. `cfProj_Pers`)
Generation	`build_document`	Wrap fragments into a complete CERIF document
Analysis	`analyze_document`	Summarize a document: entities, counts, namespace
Analysis	`extract_entities`	Extract entity instances with XPaths
Analysis	`lookup_in_document`	Find ids across a document
Migration	`migrate_15_to_16`	Migrate CERIF 1.5 XML to 1.6 (namespace, schema location, `release` removal)
PostgreSQL	`audit_postgresql`	Introspect a live PostgreSQL schema and cross-reference it with CERIF
PostgreSQL	`generate_postgresql_ddl`	Generate a CERIF 1.6 PostgreSQL DDL script (tables, views, procedures)

4 resources — cerif://entities, cerif://entities/{entity}, cerif://schemes/{id} and cerif://schema (the full XSD).

2 prompts — cerif_author (guided authoring workflow) and cerif_validator (fix-until-valid loop).

Validation is real

Validation runs the bundled official euroCRIS schema (CERIF_1.6_2.xsd, 5,134 lines, namespace urn:xmlns:org:eurocris:cerif-1.6-2) in-process via xml-xsd-engine (pure TypeScript, zero dependencies, MIT). Errors carry the message, XPath, line/column, and an error code:

# Validation FAILED

## 1 error(s)
- Unexpected element <cfBogusElement> in <cfOrgUnit[1]> [VALID_UNEXPECTED_ELEMENT] at line 5, column 5
  `/CERIF/cfOrgUnit[1]/cfBogusElement[2]`

PostgreSQL support

The server can scaffold and audit a PostgreSQL database for CERIF 1.6.

generate_postgresql_ddl produces a complete DDL script from the CERIF model. The core scope (default) emits the extended core: the 19 research-object entities (persons, organisations, projects, funds, services, facilities, equipment, publications, patents, products, events, prizes, qualifications, expertise/skills, measurements, indicators, CVs, media, geographic boxes), their language-dependent attribute tables (cf_proj_title, cf_pers_name, …), supporting tables (cf_class, cf_class_scheme, cf_eaddr, cf_paddr), and 90+ linking tables — every one with cfClassId/cfClassSchemeId as required by the cfCoreClassWithFraction group. The full scope emits all 293 CERIF entities. Every script also includes denormalised views (v_<entity>) and helper functions (cerif_insert_<entity>, cerif_count_<entity>, cerif_add_classification).
audit_postgresql connects to a live database (credentials in arguments or PG* environment variables — any user's database works, the tool discovers the schema itself), introspects tables/columns/primary keys/foreign keys/views/routines, and reports a conformity score, the missing required CERIF entities, which tables match (and their issues), orphan tables, and the routine inventory.

The generated DDL is tested end-to-end against PostgreSQL 16 in CI and during development; both scopes execute with zero errors.

Installation

Run directly (any client)

npx -y cerif-mcp

Install globally

npm install -g cerif-mcp

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/adialaleal/cerif-mcp.git
cd cerif-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start   # or: npx cerif-mcp

Configure your client

Claude Code

.mcp.json in your project root, or claude mcp add:

claude mcp add cerif-mcp -- npx -y cerif-mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cerif-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cerif-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Codex

codex mcp add cerif-mcp -- npx -y cerif-mcp

Cursor

Cursor Settings → MCP → Add server:

Type: command
Command: npx -y cerif-mcp

Cline

.clinerules/mcp.json (or Settings → MCP Servers):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cerif-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cerif-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

opencode

.opencode.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "cerif-mcp": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "cerif-mcp"],
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

Kilo

Kilo MCP settings (mcp.json or kilo mcp add):

kilo mcp add cerif-mcp -- npx -y cerif-mcp

Antigravity

Antigravity MCP configuration accepts a local command:

npx -y cerif-mcp

All clients talk to the same stdio server. If a client requires a server URL instead, run npm install -g cerif-mcp and point it at the binary with npx cerif-mcp (an HTTP/Streamable transport can be added later).

Example prompts

Author a record

Create a CERIF 1.6 record for a researcher, Jane Doe (ORCID 0000-0000-0000-0000), employed at the University of Porto and Principal Investigator on the project "DEMO", funded with €50 000. Write the XML to output/cerif.xml.

Validate

Validate output/cerif.xml against the CERIF 1.6 schema and fix any errors.

Extend existing data

Here is some CERIF XML: . Add a second publication by the same author and link it with cfResPubl_Pers.

Migrate

Migrate this CERIF 1.5 file to 1.6: .

Scaffold a database

Generate the PostgreSQL DDL for the CERIF extended core and save it to db/cerif.sql.

Audit a database

Connect to postgresql://app:secret@db.internal:5432/research and tell me how conformant the schema is with CERIF 1.6. If something is missing, show me the ALTER TABLE statements to fix it.

Learn the model

What entities link a person to a project, and which canonical scheme should I use for the role?

Development

npm install        # dependencies
npm run dev        # run the server with tsx (stdin/stdout)
npm run typecheck  # tsc --noEmit
npm run lint       # eslint
npm test           # vitest (44 tests)
npm run build      # extract model + tsc + copy XSD
npm run check      # lint + typecheck + test + build

Repository layout

scripts/extract-model.mjs   # regenerates the entity catalog from the XSD
src/data/xsd/CERIF_1.6_2.xsd # official euroCRIS schema (unchanged, CC BY-ND 3.0)
src/data/model.generated.json # generated structural catalog (293 entities)
src/data/descriptions.ts     # curated descriptions + canonical vocabularies
src/lib/                     # catalog, validate, generate, analyze, migrate, sqlaudit, sqlgen, xml, format
src/tools/                   # the 15 MCP tools (incl. audit_postgresql, generate_postgresql_ddl)
src/resources.ts, prompts.ts # MCP resources and prompts
src/server.ts, index.ts      # assembly and stdio entry point
test/                        # vitest suites + XML fixtures

Regenerating the catalog

The generated catalog is produced from the bundled XSD:

node scripts/extract-model.mjs

License

Bundled schema (src/data/xsd/CERIF_1.6_2.xsd): © euroCRIS, distributed unchanged under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 — see src/data/xsd/README-license.md.

CERIF is a registered standard of euroCRIS. This project is an independent, community tool for interoperating with CERIF data and is not an official euroCRIS product.