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a-point-systems-ltd/accessmcp

v2.4.0

Microsoft Access tools for AI agents: inspect schemas, read and write data, edit VBA, run health reports. Free account included — read tools are free, write tools come with the trial and Pro.

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agent-plugin — the canonical AccessMCP plugin package

An Agent Plugins 1.0 package — plugin.json (with the standard $schema), mcp.json, skills/, bootstrap/ — consumable as-is by clients that speak the standard (Cursor, VS Code), and the base every other client adapter is derived from. Do not edit per-client copies; edit here (or rather: upstream in the product repo's packaging/, which syncs to here), and let CI verify the copies match.

Plugin-root variables

mcp.json uses the Agent Plugins standard ${PLUGIN_ROOT} variable. Client adapters that use a different variable are derived by the sync workflow, never edited by hand:

ClientVariableWhere
Cursor / VS Code (Agent Plugins 1.0)${PLUGIN_ROOT}this package, unchanged
Claude Code${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}../claude-plugin/.mcp.json, derived
Codex (D5 adapter)per OpenAI plugin docsderived at D5

CI fails if the canonical package loses the standard token or an adapter still carries it un-substituted.

What the bootstrap does — and the three install families

bootstrap/bootstrap.ps1 runs exactly the version this plugin pins in bootstrap/release-manifest.json, from the shared version cache (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\AccessMCP\versions\<v>\accessmcp.exe), downloading and SHA256-verifying it from the version-pinned GitHub Release URL on first use. Two plugins pinned to the same version share one copy; plugins pinned to different versions are isolated — one client updating never changes what another runs. Updates arrive by updating the plugin (which moves the pin); a throttled, best-effort remote check only prints a notice when something newer exists.

Deliberately separate install families:

  1. Plugins → the shared version cache above.
  2. Manual / install-accessmcp.ps1 → a standalone exe wherever the user puts it; the bootstrap neither uses nor touches it.
  3. Claude Desktop .mcpb → its own bundled exe.

Platform nuance: on macOS/Linux the plugin fails before the bootstrap can even print its explanatory error — powershell.exe does not exist there, so the client surfaces its own "command not found". That is accepted (plan §6): manifests declare Windows-only wherever the format allows, and the docs say it plainly; no cross-platform launcher will be built to prettify a platform we do not support.

The direct-download contract is untouched by all of this: a bare accessmcp.exe pointed at by a hand-written mcp.json keeps working with none of these files present. Full contract: docs/plugin-platforms-development-plan.md §2.2–§2.3 in the product repo.