search-mcp

Open-source toolkit for Cloudflare AI Search:

1. MCP Worker (src/mcp.ts) -- bearer-gated Streamable-HTTP MCP for agents: search, list_repos, get_file, ask, corpus_status, plus corpus:// resources.

2. Query Worker (src/index.ts) -- CORS + Turnstile + rate-limited POST /ask that streams answers for a browser widget.

3. Corpus sync (scripts/sync.mjs, scripts/sync-runner.mjs) -- git-tracked sources to R2, with extension remapping so TypeScript, Dockerfiles, and other text AI Search would otherwise skip get indexed.

git repos  ->  sync.mjs  ->  R2 bucket  ->  AI Search instance  ->  /ask + /mcp

Install (npm)

The corpus sync CLIs and ask-widget assets ship on npm as @skyphusion/search-mcp (the unscoped name search-mcp is taken by another project).

npm install @skyphusion/search-mcp
# or run without installing:
npx --package=@skyphusion/search-mcp search-mcp-sync corpus --dry-run

Put targets.json in your project root (copy from node_modules/@skyphusion/search-mcp/scripts/targets.json.example) or set SEARCH_MCP_TARGETS. Clone roots default to the current working directory; override with SYNC_REPO_ROOT.

Widget assets after install:

cp node_modules/@skyphusion/search-mcp/public/ask-widget.{js,css} ./docs/

Workers (src/) deploy from a git clone; see docs/DEPLOY.md.

Related MCP server: github-mcp

Quick start (from source)

npm install
cp wrangler.toml.example wrangler.toml
cp wrangler.mcp.toml.example wrangler.mcp.toml
cp scripts/targets.json.example scripts/targets.json
# edit the three files for your account, instance, bucket, and repos

npm run typecheck   # src + index.test.ts (Workers types) AND scripts/**/*.test.ts (Node types)
npm test

Provision R2 + AI Search, sync your corpus, deploy both Workers. Step-by-step: docs/DEPLOY.md.

Skyphusion production

This repo is the production home for three AI Search surfaces:

Do not commit wrangler.toml, wrangler.mcp.toml, or scripts/targets.json (gitignored). Rockenhaus is the exception: its wrangler file is public and tracked.

• Operator runbook -- secrets, topology shape, escrow, reindex

• Cutover record (2026-07-08) -- migration history (historical)

Workers

Deploy separately so browser traffic and agent traffic can bind different AI Search instances.

npm run deploy              # public query Worker
npm run deploy:mcp          # MCP Worker
npm run deploy:rockenhaus   # rockenhaus query Worker (uses committed wrangler file)
wrangler secret put MCP_TOKEN -c wrangler.mcp.toml
wrangler secret put TURNSTILE_SECRET   # optional; skips verification when unset

MCP client wiring

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "search-mcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://YOUR_MCP_HOST/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

MCP_TOKEN accepts a single token or comma-separated name=token pairs for per-consumer attribution in logs.

MCP tools (agents)

Resources: corpus://catalog, corpus://skill. Prefer list_repos → search → get_file; use ask when you want prose rather than raw chunks.

Bind the same R2 bucket the sync uploads to as CORPUS on the MCP Worker so get_file and status work. Optional CORPUS_REPOS JSON pins the catalog without listing R2.

Corpus sync

export R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID=... R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=... CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID=...
export CORPUS_GIT_ORG=your-org GITHUB_TOKEN=...   # for sync-runner clone auth

npm run sync:dry          # plan upload for the default `corpus` target
npm run sync              # upload + prune
npm run sync:public       # skyphusion public target (when targets.json has it)
npm run sync:internal     # skyphusion internal target
npm run sync:rockenhaus   # rockenhaus target
npm run sync:run          # isolated clone root, sync all targets, optional reindex

Useful npm scripts (also npx CLIs for the first two after install):

The sync remaps non-native extensions (.ts, .tsx, extensionless Dockerfile, .service, etc.) to .txt keys so AI Search indexes them. See scripts/sync-ingest.mjs.

Bounding a corpus: includePaths vs excludePaths

excludePaths is a denylist and is fail-open: add a new top-level file to a repo and it silently joins the corpus. That is fine for a docs site. It is wrong whenever the corpus boundary actually matters, because "we forgot to exclude it" becomes a real incident.

includePaths / excludePaths may sit at the top level (same rule for every target that lists the repo) or nested under a target (search-mcp#62). When both set the same repo, the per-target map wins for that target only -- so a repo can be full-tree on internal and _corpus/-only on a public court surface.

includePaths is an allowlist and is fail-closed: when a repo has an entry, only paths under those prefixes are eligible and everything else is refused.

{
  "includePaths": { "my-repo": ["docs/", "_corpus/"] },
  "excludePaths": { "my-repo": ["docs/internal/"] }
}

The two compose subtractively: includePaths decides what is eligible, then excludePaths subtracts from that. A denylist entry can never add a path back.

Omit a repo from includePaths to keep the previous behaviour. An entry that is present but empty ([]) is a configuration error, not a way to say "index nothing": those are different states and collapsing them into the permissive one is how a whole repo joins a corpus by accident.

A present allowlist must earn its keep

An allowlist that quietly matches nothing is worse than no allowlist. The sync plans zero objects, the mirror prune deletes the corpus that was there, the reindex succeeds over nothing, and the answer surface returns a confident nothing with every status light green. So each of these refuses the run (exit 2) before anything uploads or is pruned:

Shape and repo-name checks run for every target on every sync, not just the one being synced, so a rule that has rotted is caught by the next run of any target. A stale excludePaths repo name warns rather than refuses: denylist rot grows a corpus, allowlist rot empties one.

Verify what a target will actually upload before you trust it:

node scripts/sync.mjs my-target --dry-run

Size cap

Objects over SYNC_MAX_BYTES (default 4 MB) are skipped. Skips are summarised at the end of the run, not only warned inline, because a file silently missing from the corpus looks exactly like a file the corpus does not contain -- the worst failure mode for something that answers questions. Pass --fail-on-skip to turn an incomplete corpus into a failed run.

SYNC_MAX_BYTES=$((16 * 1024 * 1024)) node scripts/sync.mjs corpus --fail-on-skip

Corpus manifest (optional)

A corpus producer can publish a manifest.json next to its objects so the widget renders citations instead of raw R2 keys. Entries need a key; title, url, page, and total_pages are used when present:

{ "pages": [
  { "key": "my-doc/p003.txt", "title": "Deploy guide", "url": "/docs/deploy/", "page": 3, "total_pages": 12 }
] }

Keys are matched exactly first, then by suffix, because the sync namespaces every object under its repo name (<repo>/<path>) while a producer naturally writes its manifest in terms of its own paths.

Reindex dispatch

AI Search rejects a new reindex job for two distinct reasons, and sync-runner clears both before dispatching:

1. A job is in flight. Firing anyway does not queue behind it; Cloudflare ends the running job with end_reason: "new_job_has_started" and restarts. So we wait for ended_at.

2. The post-job cooldown. Even once a job ends, a new one is refused for a cooldown window with sync_in_cooldown [code: 7020]. Waiting for the job to end is necessary but not sufficient, so we retry until it clears.

3. Transient connect failures. unable_to_connect_to_ai_search [code: 7017] on jobs create is retried under the same budget as cooldown (search-mcp#73). Treating it as terminal made the whole sync red while R2 already had the new objects.

Waiting (rather than skipping) means the job we start always lands strictly after our own upload, so it sees every object this run wrote. Merge bursts still coalesce: a waiting run holds the workflow concurrency group, and GitHub keeps only the newest queued run, so the runs behind it collapse instead of each firing their own reindex.

Each wait has its own budget (10 min in-flight, 10 min cooldown/connect) rather than one shared deadline, since the two are additive on a perfectly healthy path: a run can wait minutes for an in-flight reindex and then still owe a cooldown wait.

The measured cooldown is short (rejected at 10s after a job ends, accepted at 32s), so the budgets are far larger than they need to be today. That is deliberate. The measurement is an observation, not a contract, and a budget sized to it would turn ordinary upstream variance into red builds. If a budget is exhausted the run fails loudly and says what it means: the R2 corpus uploaded fine, nothing is lost, the index lags until the next sync or the daily backstop.

Ask widget

Copy public/ask-widget.js and public/ask-widget.css to your docs site:

<div id="docs-ask"></div>
<script defer src="/ask-widget.js"
        data-endpoint="https://search.example.com/ask"
        data-target="#docs-ask"
        data-label="Ask the docs"
        data-manifest="/corpus-manifest.json"
        data-empty-text="Nothing in the indexed corpus addresses that."
        data-sitekey="YOUR_TURNSTILE_SITEKEY"></script>

data-manifest is optional; without it sources render as raw object keys. A missing or malformed manifest degrades to raw keys rather than breaking answers.

data-empty-text is shown when a query returns no retrieved sources, so an unsourced answer is never left on screen looking authoritative.

Per-site system prompts

One deployment can serve several sites. ORIGIN_PROFILES is a JSON object in [vars] mapping an exact request Origin to that site's system prompt:

ORIGIN_PROFILES = '{"https://docs.example.com":"You are the docs assistant...","https://other.example":"You are..."}'

Precedence is ORIGIN_PROFILES, then the legacy blog special-case, then ASSISTANT_SYSTEM_PROMPT. A malformed value is logged and ignored so a bad var cannot take /ask down.

Who this is for

Operators building documentation search, agent tooling, or internal knowledge bases on Cloudflare AI Search with MCP and a browser widget.

Links

• Deploy guide: docs/DEPLOY.md

• Live ask UIs: skyphusion.net/search · vivijure.com (ask widget)

• Skyphusion Labs: https://skyphusion.org · Blog: https://skyphusion.net · Org: https://github.com/skyphusion-labs

• Related: vivijure, postern, security-audit, prism

License

AGPL-3.0-only. See LICENSE.

Community

• Contributing

• Security policy

• Code of Conduct