Maintenance Tracker MCP for Signal K

A maintenance plan that lives on your boat. Record every system and part aboard, from the engine down to the impeller, and it tells you what's due, before launch and after haulout. Keep it up to date by telling your AI assistant what you did.

Great minds think alike! This plugin is not related to hoeken's signalk-maintenance-tracker, which is also worth a look.

Why use it

• Your whole boat in one place. Record each system, its components and parts, with maker, model and serial number, so you can look up which filter fits or what the impeller's part number is. Start from a typical boat or build your own.

• Log work by talking. A built-in MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants read and update the plan. Say "Changed the impeller" and the job is logged and its interval restarts. Ask "What's left before launch?" and get the answer.

• Intervals that match how boats wear. Every 200 engine hours or once a year, whichever comes first. Two weeks before launch. The expiry date printed on the flares. Engine hours come straight from Signal K.

• Planned around your season. The Work list counts down to launch or haulout and shows what's due this week, what's overdue and what must be done before the boat goes in.

• Runs on the boat. It's a Signal K plugin with its own web app for phone, tablet and laptop. It works on the boat's network without internet; only the AI connection needs one.

• Your records, in plain files. Every change is a git commit on the server, with optional backup to a private repository. Nothing is locked in a cloud account.

It also keeps a list of issues (a loose tiller, a weeping seacock) with a fix-by milestone, runs checklists for launch and haulout, stores photos of nameplates and damage, and raises Signal K notifications when jobs come due.

Related MCP server: Workshop Assistant

Get started

You need Signal K server 2.x on Node.js 22 or later, and git on the server (Raspberry Pi OS has it).

1. In the Signal K Admin UI, open Appstore → Available, install Maintenance Tracker MCP and restart the server.

2. Enable it under Server → Plugin Config → Maintenance Tracker MCP.

3. Open it from Webapps, or at http://<your-server>:3000/signalk-maintenance-tracker-mcp/.

4. Choose Start with a typical boat. You get a sailing boat with an inboard engine, laid out with common intervals: engine, fuel, rig, hull, safety, gas and more. Delete what you don't have and set each part's last service.

5. Add your launch and haulout dates under Boat → Seasons. Season jobs count from them.

6. For hours-based jobs, check that Engine-hours Signal K path in Plugin Config points at your engine's running time. The default, propulsion.main.runTime, is where signalk-engine-hours writes.

To install from a git checkout, for example on a Raspberry Pi, see DEPLOY.md.

Connect an AI assistant

Assistants run in the cloud, so the MCP server needs a public HTTPS address: a Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale Funnel or a reverse proxy pointed at port 8766.

The web app's MCP page does the rest. It creates the access key, saves your public address, shows the connector address to add in your assistant, and tells you when the first request arrives.

Then talk to it:

• "What's due in the next month?"

• "Changed the engine oil and filter at 1234 hours. It cost 60 euros."

• "The tiller is loose on the rudder shaft. Fix it before launch."

• "Start the haulout checklist."

For better results, add the ready-made skill, which the MCP page offers as a ZIP for Claude and as text for other assistants. In Claude, the assistant can also open a photo panel to attach pictures to a record.

How jobs come due

A part can have several triggers. The one closest to due sets its status.

A job is due soon inside its warning time (14 days, 10 hours or 1 trip by default, 30 days before an expiry) and overdue after. Logging it restarts the count.

For each job the plugin publishes notifications.maintenance.<part>.<trigger>: warn when due soon and alarm when overdue, so any Signal K app can show it.

Your data

Records are YAML files in ~/.signalk/plugin-config-data/signalk-maintenance-tracker-mcp/, a git repository with one commit per change. To keep a copy off the boat, set Git-backed storage → Remote URL to a private repository and turn on Push to remote. The server needs credentials for it, such as an SSH deploy key.

The REST API is under /plugins/signalk-maintenance-tracker-mcp/, described in schema/openapi.yaml and in the Admin UI under Documentation → OpenAPI.

Security

• The web app and REST API use your Signal K login. Read-only accounts can look; read-write accounts can change the plan.

• The MCP server has its own key and doesn't start without one. It refuses any request without the key, and it can reach only the maintenance records.

• Expose it only over HTTPS, and set Allowed hosts to your public host name to turn on DNS-rebinding protection.

Development

npm install
npm run build     # plugin and web app
npm test
npm run dev:web   # web app with hot reload at http://localhost:3778, plugin included

SK_URL=http://localhost:3778 node tools/dev-fixtures.mjs fills the dev server with a sample boat. The web app is in web/ (Preact, TypeScript, Vite).

Parts of this plugin were written with AI assistance. Reviewed and tested before release; issues and PRs welcome.

Licence

MIT. The web app bundles Material Symbols (© Google, Apache 2.0) and Roboto Flex (© The Roboto Flex Project Authors, SIL OFL 1.1).