html-mcp-web

Review an AI agent's HTML slides or report from the rendered page while Claude Code or Codex edits the source.

You open the artifact in a local review page, select rendered text, and comment on it. The agent reads the comment over MCP, edits the HTML, and replies in the same thread. Because you point at the rendered page, you never hunt for the source, and saving a file refreshes only the artifact frame, so your scroll position and drafts stay put.

you:    select text on the page -> write a comment
                  |
agent:  read comments -> edit HTML -> reply or resolve
                  |
you:    read the refreshed page -> comment again

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer.

• Firefox, only for PDF or PPTX export.

Related MCP server: pointless

Install

git clone https://github.com/MiiKiyoshi/html-mcp-web.git
cd html-mcp-web
python -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e '.[mcp]'

Register the MCP server once, using the executable inside the venv so it resolves without activation. Run this from the repository directory:

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --scope user html-mcp -- "$PWD/.venv/bin/html-mcp"

Codex:

codex mcp add html-mcp -- "$PWD/.venv/bin/html-mcp"

The html-mcp-web command (project setup) is also in .venv/bin; activate the venv or call it by that path.

Quickstart

cd examples
# Start Claude Code or Codex here, with the html-mcp server enabled.

Ask the agent to call inspect(). The review page opens at http://localhost:8766, with tabs for the neutral slides and report examples. Select some text, press Comment, and ask the agent to process the comments.

Set up your own artifact

In the directory that holds your artifact, create one project and pick a layout:

html-mcp-web init --layout slides --main artifact.html

Then ask the agent to call inspect(); the same session starts the review page at the configured port. init writes .html-mcp-web.yaml:

artifacts:
  slides:
    label: Slides
    layout: slides
    main: artifact.html
watch: ['*.html', '*.css', '*.js', '*.svg', '*.png', '*.jpg', '*.jpeg', '*.gif', '*.webp']
ignore: []
port: 8765

artifacts maps an id to its label, layout (slides is 16:9, report is A4), and main file, where every section.page is one printed page. watch refreshes on save, ignore is checked first, and port is the local address. Agent sessions that find the same config share one server, comments, and revisions.

Use it

Select text and press Comment; the anchor reattaches to the quote after edits. Use + Note for a whole-artifact comment, the Pages tab to jump between pages, and the Edit link to fix your own message in place. Resolve and Dismiss close a comment in one click. Then ask the agent:

Process the open html-mcp-web comments.

The agent reads the comments, edits the source, and replies or resolves each one. The review page also flags anything off the page, clipped SVG drawings, and overlapping labels at the artifact's fixed size, and reports them to the agent so it can fix them. Comments are stored in .html-mcp-web/comments/<artifact>.json, which holds selected text, so whether to track it in git is a privacy choice.

Templates

A template compiles a small content file into the artifact, so you edit content while the cover, bars, and page numbers stay consistent:

html-mcp-web init --layout slides --main slides.html --template neutral-slides --content content.html

The build reruns on every content save. This repo ships templates/neutral-slides/ and templates/neutral-report/; the content format is in templates/README.md. Your own templates go in ~/.config/html-mcp-web/templates/<name>/ and stay out of this repository.

Export

The topbar exports each artifact as a file. PDF prints every page at the layout's fixed size through headless Firefox. PPTX (slides only) builds an editable deck: text stays editable text, tables stay tables, inline SVG stays vector, and math becomes an image. A skin can name TrueType files to embed the deck font; see templates/README.md.

Configuration

html-mcp-web config                                  # print the whole config
html-mcp-web config artifacts.slides.layout report   # change one value
html-mcp-web config port 8766
html-mcp-web config watch '*.html,assets/**'

init also takes --port and, for a templated artifact, --template <name> --content <file>. Config changes apply on the next save; a port change takes effect when the agent restarts.

Security

An agent-generated artifact runs JavaScript with the local page's privileges, so html-mcp-web is for trusted local artifacts and binds to 127.0.0.1 only.

Acknowledgements

MIT licensed; see LICENSE. Full-screen wheel navigation adapts the intent-detection strategy from Swiper's Mousewheel module by Vladimir Kharlampidi and the Swiper contributors, under the MIT license.