@frtnbach/node-red-contrib-mcp-server

Generic Model Context Protocol (MCP) server nodes for Node-RED: expose any flow as an MCP tool behind an OAuth-protected endpoint, with optional Node-RED admin (flow read/deploy) tools. No home-automation or other domain coupling — this is a bare building block for turning Node-RED flows into MCP tools that AI assistants (Claude, etc.) can call.

Nodes

• mcp-server (config node) — hosts a standalone MCP JSON-RPC endpoint at POST /mcp/<path>, OAuth 2.0 protected-resource discovery (RFC 9728), authorization-server discovery (RFC 8414) proxying a real OIDC identity provider, and a dynamic client registration shim, so OAuth-aware MCP clients (e.g. Claude.ai) can self-register and authenticate. Multiple mcp-server nodes can coexist, each with its own path and its own independent auth configuration.

• mcp-in — defines one MCP tool (name, description, JSON-Schema parameters). When an MCP client calls the tool, the node emits a message carrying the call arguments; wire the rest of the flow to do the actual work.

• mcp-out — resolves a pending tool call. Wire the end of your flow here with msg._mcpCallId intact (from the originating mcp-in message) and msg.payload set to the result.

A single mcp-in → ... → mcp-out chain is one MCP tool. Build as many chains as you want against the same mcp-server node to expose a whole toolset.

Related MCP server: node-red-mcp-server

Admin tools

Enable Admin tools on an mcp-server node to additionally expose two tools that operate on Node-RED's own Admin HTTP API, gated by a configurable JWT claim (default: groups contains admin):

• get_flow — lists all flow tabs (id, label, node count), or returns the full JSON of one tab when called with an id.

• deploy_flow — creates or updates a flow tab.

Configuring an mcp-server node

• General: name, path (→ registers POST /mcp/<path>), the public Server URL this Node-RED instance is reachable at, optional server name/instructions shown to the model, and an optional hostname filter (see below).

• Auth: an OIDC Identity provider issuer URL (required — endpoints auto-discovered from /.well-known/openid-configuration, with PocketID-style fallback paths; leaving this empty produces a broken OAuth discovery document with relative-path endpoints and no working auth, so the editor won't let you deploy without it), client id/secret (leave the secret empty to run as a public/PKCE client — recommended), required redirect URIs (defaults to Claude.ai's callback), scopes, token audience, an optional local debug token that bypasses the IdP entirely for local testing (put any placeholder URL in Identity provider and rely on the debug token — it's never contacted when the debug token matches), and a whole-server required claim/value gate (see below, unrelated despite the similar name).

• Admin: enable/disable admin tools, admin token (for the Node-RED Admin API), admin API port, and the required claim/value gate that additionally restricts just the admin tools.

Access control

Two independent, optional gates:

• Whole-server gate (Auth tab, Required claim/Required value): when a value is set, the validated token's claim must contain it for any of this server's tools — including admin tools — to be usable. Callers who fail the check still connect (initialize succeeds) but see no tools and any tools/call is refused with a human-readable reason. Leave the value empty (the default) to allow all authenticated users.

• Admin-only gate (Admin tab): the same shape, but only gates get_flow/deploy_flow — ordinary tools defined by mcp-in/mcp-out remain usable by anyone who passes the whole-server gate above.

Both denials are returned as an MCP tool result with isError: true and an explanatory message (not a raw JSON-RPC protocol error), so the reason reaches the calling model instead of being collapsed into a generic "tool execution failed".

Hostname filtering

Off by default. When Only serve requests for this hostname is enabled, the node only answers requests whose Host header matches the hostname in its Server URL. This lets several mcp-server nodes share the same path on one Node-RED instance, each answering only its own virtual host — useful behind a reverse proxy that fronts multiple hostnames for one Node-RED backend. Leave it off for a single server, or when a reverse proxy rewrites the Host header.

Reverse proxy

Each mcp-server node is its own OAuth resource — unlike a single shared MCP endpoint, every instance registers its own discovery and registration routes, scoped under its path. For a node with path: docker and Server URL: https://mcp.example.com, these six routes exist:

Both well-known forms are advertised because different MCP clients probe different ones — expose both. Since every instance's routes share the /mcp/<path> and /.well-known/*/mcp/<path> shapes, one set of wildcard rules covers every current and future mcp-server node (as long as they're all reachable through the same domain/upstream) — no reverse-proxy change needed when adding a new path. Example, using Caddy via caddy-docker-proxy labels:

labels:
  caddy_1: mcp.example.com
  caddy_1.reverse_proxy_0: /mcp/* "{{upstreams 1880}}"
  caddy_1.reverse_proxy_1: /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp/* "{{upstreams 1880}}"
  caddy_1.reverse_proxy_2: /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server/mcp/* "{{upstreams 1880}}"

Node-RED itself 404s any path that isn't an actual registered route, so the wildcard doesn't expose anything beyond what each deployed mcp-server node already registers. If a path needs to be reachable on a different domain than the others, give it its own caddy_N site block (or combine with hostname filtering above).

What the identity provider needs to support (same requirements as lib/mcp-auth.js):

• An OIDC provider with discovery — endpoints are read from ‹issuerUrl›/.well-known/openid-configuration, falling back to PocketID's path layout if discovery is unavailable.

• JWT access tokens signed with a key published on the provider's JWKS (tokens are verified locally; opaque/introspection-only access tokens are not supported).

• A client configured with the redirect URI(s) from the node's Redirect URIs setting, grant types authorization_code + refresh_token, PKCE (S256), and — if a client secret is set — client_secret_post auth. Leave the secret empty to run as a public/PKCE client (recommended).

Tested with Caddy (reverse proxy) + PocketID (identity provider) + Claude.ai (MCP client). Any spec-compliant OIDC provider issuing JWT access tokens, behind any reverse proxy that forwards the routes above, should work the same way.

Examples

See examples/ for nine ready-to-import flows (Jellyfin, Calibre, Docker, Music Assistant, Radarr, iRobot/rest980, Overseerr, Sonarr, Spotify), each with its own mcp-server node (server description pre-filled, Server URL/Identity provider left blank for you to fill in) and mcp-in/mcp-out tools — a good reference for wiring up your own tools.

Development

npm install
npm test

License

ISC