Jisr · جسر — feel at home in a new city (Alexa+ MCP server)

Jisr ("bridge" in Arabic) is a bilingual Arabic/English Alexa+ add-on, built as a self-hosted MCP server (spec 2025-11-25, Streamable HTTP). It helps the 3.5+ million Arabic speakers in the US — and every newcomer family — settle into a new city by voice:

"Alexa, ask Jisr where I can get shawarma in Salt Lake City." «أليكسا، اسأل جسر عن مواقيت الصلاة اليوم» "Alexa, ask Jisr how to say my son is sick in English." "Alexa, ask Jisr to plan my first week in Houston."

Built for the Amazon Developer Hackathon — Alexa+ track. Because the Alexa+ MCP Toolkit / Web Simulator are partner-only, this repo also ships an Alexa+ experience simulator (public/index.html): a web page that is a real MCP client (it sends initialize, notifications/initialized, tools/list, tools/call to /mcp over Streamable HTTP), with voice in (Web Speech API), voice out (speech synthesis), an "Echo Show" screen and a live MCP-traffic panel.

Tools

Every result includes structuredContent plus a speech string in the user's language, so a voice assistant can read it as-is. Tools carry readOnlyHint annotations. No user accounts, no personal data stored — so per the Alexa+ docs, account linking is not needed.

Related MCP server: goodturn-mcp

Alexa+ MCP requirements checklist

• MCP spec 2025-11-25 (initialize negotiates it; also accepts 2025-06-18 / 2025-03-26)

• Streamable HTTP at POST /mcp (JSON responses), Mcp-Session-Id issued on initialize, 202 for notifications, 405 on GET (no server stream), DELETE ends a session, 404 for unknown sessions, MCP-Protocol-Version header checked, Origin allow-list (ALLOWED_ORIGINS)

• Remote URL (deploy below) · [x] < 500 ms round trip for snapshot cities (tested)

• Text-only experience (Echo Show visuals shown by the simulator)

Run it (Node 20+, zero dependencies)

git clone https://github.com/baroodstore1-ai/jisr-alexa && cd jisr-alexa
npm start            # MCP at http://localhost:8787/mcp, simulator at http://localhost:8787/
npm test             # offline tests, incl. a full Streamable HTTP session + latency check

Try it with curl:

curl -si localhost:8787/mcp -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-11-25","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"curl","version":"1"}}}'
# then, with the returned Mcp-Session-Id:
curl -s localhost:8787/mcp -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'mcp-session-id: <id>' -H 'mcp-protocol-version: 2025-11-25' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"prayer_times","arguments":{"city":"Salt Lake City","lang":"ar"}}}'

Use it from any MCP client (MCP Inspector, Claude Desktop, Cursor…): point it at https://<your-host>/mcp (Streamable HTTP), or stdio: npm run mcp:stdio.

Env: PORT, ALLOWED_ORIGINS (comma list), JISR_OFFLINE=1 (snapshot only), OVERPASS_URL, OSM_USER_AGENT. Refresh the snapshot with npm run snapshot.

Deploy (free): Render → New → Blueprint → this repo (render.yaml), or docker build -t jisr . && docker run -p 8787:8787 jisr. For a quick public URL from your laptop: cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:8787.

Architecture

Alexa+ / any MCP client ──Streamable HTTP──▶ /mcp (src/mcp.js) ──▶ tools (src/tools.js)
Simulator (public/index.html) ─┘                                      ├─ geo.js   OSM Overpass/Nominatim + snapshot
  voice in/out · intent router · Echo Show screen                      ├─ prayer.js local astronomy
                                                                       └─ phrases.js EN↔AR phrasebook

Support the project

Jisr is free and open source, and it will stay that way. If it helps your family, community group or resettlement agency, you can support it:

• Star the repo and open issues or PRs, especially new phrasebook entries, cities and languages.

• GitHub Sponsors: not enabled yet. A Sponsor button will appear at the top of this repo once it is.

• Solana (SOL / USDC on Solana), receive only: EkyuoGVxpdf2rjywLh7TUyvkkerj15f4MXnsj2mpKpvA

Please only send from a wallet you control. We will never DM you asking for funds, keys or seed phrases, and there is no Jisr token: any coin using the name is not ours.

Credits & license

MIT (see LICENSE). Place data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon; "Alexa" is used only to describe the target platform. Built with AI-assisted coding; Arabic reviewed by a native speaker.