Tools

Seven tools covering the full display pipeline — from quick styled text to full layered scene composition, device control, and initial setup:

pixoo_display_text

The primary tool for text-only display. Covers the 80% case — styled text with quality defaults.

• Named scene themes set background gradient and text palette in one parameter (midnight, ember, claude, ice, neon, forest, mono)

• Style block: gradient palette ramps (ember, ice, neon, fire, lavender, claude, mono), drop shadow, 1px outline for legibility, integer scale multiplier for block-letter weight

• Semantic positioning: x: "center", y: "bottom" — no manual pixel math

• Auto-fit overflow: tries 5×7 → 3×5 → scroll; every fit decision reported in layout[]

• Returns the rendered frame as an image content block so you see it immediately

• Optional brightness convenience parameter applied before push

pixoo_compose_scene

Full scene composition with the complete element vocabulary.

• Layered elements rendered back-to-front: text, icon, rect, circle, line, progress, sparkline, bitmap, pixels, image, sprite

• Named icons from the built-in registry (weather, arrows, status, media) or custom SVG path

• Dashboard widgets: progress bar with gradient fill and optional label; sparkline mini chart (line or bar, auto-scaled)

• Animation: named effect presets (float, scroll-left, scroll-right, pulse, blink, twinkle, drift, fade-in, fade-out) or raw keyframe arrays — 1–40 frames, configurable speed

• Per-element opacity and visible flag; images at https URLs fetched server-side to a temp file

• Returns a preview image (static: PNG; animated: labeled contact-sheet PNG + GIF saved to disk)

pixoo_push_image

Push any image to the display with control over the downsampling.

• Accepts absolute local paths and https URLs

• Three fit modes: contain (letterbox), cover (crop to fill), fill (stretch)

• Three resize kernels: nearest for pixel art, lanczos3 for photos, mitchell for a balance

• Returns the exact 64×64 result as an image block — you see what the display received

pixoo_overlay_text

Device-native scrolling text overlay — persists across channel switches.

• 115 device-rendered font IDs (0–114)

• Up to 20 independent overlay slots (IDs 0–19)

• Configurable scroll direction, speed, and alignment

• Clears with mode: "clear" — overlays survive channel changes until explicitly removed

• Not previewable (device-rendered); for styled previewable text use pixoo_display_text

pixoo_design_brief

The orientation tool. Run before authoring any scene to get grounded in 64px craft constraints.

• Six topics: text, scene, dashboard, animation, pixel-art, troubleshooting

• Returns legibility floors, palette discipline, layout zones, animation budgets, and common pitfalls

• Merges live device state (reachable, channel, brightness, screen) into the response

• Pre-filled nextToolSuggestions with ready-to-use arguments based on current device state

Resources

All resource data is also reachable via tools. pixoo_design_brief surfaces the design guide content per topic; pixoo_control_device returns live device state equivalent to pixoo://device/status.

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

• Declarative tool and resource definitions — single file per primitive, framework handles registration and validation

• Unified error handling — handlers throw, framework catches, classifies, and formats

• Pluggable auth: none, jwt, oauth

• Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1

• Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing

• STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports, serving MCP protocol revision 2026-07-28 alongside the 2025 revisions

Pixoo-specific:

• Requires a Divoom Pixoo LED matrix display on the local network; primary target is the Pixoo-64 (16 and 32 also supported)

• All composition happens in an RGBA canvas pipeline on the host (@cyanheads/pixoo-toolkit) — the device receives final RGB frames, never raw drawing commands

• Styled text engine: gradient palette ramps, drop shadows, outlines, integer scale, semantic alignment — no manual pixel math or bitmap letterforms required

• Push pacing: device commands serialized with a configurable minimum inter-push interval (default 1000ms) to prevent device freezes

• Every PixooResult checked — pushed: true means the device acknowledged with error_code: 0, never "I tried"

• Animation capped at 40 frames (device instability beyond this); contact-sheet PNG preview for animations (GIF inconsistent across MCP clients)

• Local transports only — sharp image processing doesn't run on Cloudflare Workers

Agent-friendly output:

• Preview-as-content: render tools return the upscaled (8×, 512px) output as an image content block — the calling model sees exactly what was drawn, before and after push

• Layout transparency: every silent renderer decision (font fallback, truncation, scroll engaged, element clipped) reported in layout[] so agents can inspect and refine

• Device truth: pushed reflects the device ACK; deviceState post-push flags visibility issues (screen off, brightness ≤ 10, wrong channel) as enrichment notices rather than failures

• Graceful degradation: render succeeds and returns the preview even when the device is unreachable — the agent keeps its work

Getting started

Requirements: A Divoom Pixoo display (Pixoo-64, Pixoo-32, or Pixoo-16) on the same local network as the server. Run pixoo_discover_devices to find its IP, then set PIXOO_IP in your server configuration.

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixoo-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/pixoo-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "PIXOO_IP": "192.168.1.50"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixoo-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/pixoo-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "PIXOO_IP": "192.168.1.50"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixoo-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "-e", "PIXOO_IP=192.168.1.50",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/pixoo-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 PIXOO_IP=192.168.1.50 bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.3.2 or higher (or Node.js v24+).

• A Divoom Pixoo LED matrix display on the local network (Pixoo-64, Pixoo-32, or Pixoo-16). Discovery tools and pure-render tools (push: false) work without a configured device.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/pixoo-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd pixoo-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set PIXOO_IP

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas in src/config/server-config.ts. Key environment variables:

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker build -t pixoo-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -e PIXOO_IP=192.168.1.50 -p 3010:3010 pixoo-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/pixoo-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic

• Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage

• The renderer (src/renderer/) is pure — no device dependency, testable without hardware

• All device calls go through PixooService; every PixooResult is checked

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.