MicroTool Hub — Laravel Community Platform & ChatGPT MCP Plugin

PHP 8.3+ Laravel 13 PostgreSQL MCP Standard OpenAI Plugin Standard

MicroTool Hub is a full-featured developer platform where users discover, create, edit, preview, publish, share, and fork small single-purpose web tools (calculators, formatters, converters, generators, mini-games, and visual utilities).

The platform integrates natively with ChatGPT and Codex via a remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server over Streamable HTTP and the MCP Apps UI standard.

Features

Multi-Database Support: Native support for PostgreSQL 14+ (Neon, Supabase, Render, Railway, AWS RDS), MySQL 8 (cPanel shared hosting), and SQLite (local development & testing). See POSTGRESQL_SETUP.md.
AI Code Studio: 3-panel developer workspace with file tree, real-time code editor, keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+S), autosave indicators, and instant live sandboxed previews.
Remote MCP Server (POST /mcp): Streamable HTTP JSON-RPC 2.0 server exposing 24 tools with strict schemas, decoupled data/render pattern, and mandatory safety annotations.
MCP Apps In-Chat Interactive UI: Renders live, functional micro-tools directly in ChatGPT conversation streams via render_microtool_widget (ui://microtool/preview.html).
OAuth 2.1 & RFC 9728 Discovery: Full authorization server metadata, PKCE (S256), protected resource metadata, and domain verification challenge.
Secure Private Filesystem Sandbox: Absolute containment in storage/app/private/projects/ preventing directory traversal (.., null bytes, symlinks) and restricting file types to safe web assets.
Project Version Snapshots: Instant ZIP snapshots (create_snapshot, restore_snapshot) before modifications and for version locking on publish.
Community Discovery & Forking: Public catalog with category filters, search, likes, comments, author profiles, and one-click tool forking.
cPanel Shared Hosting Ready: Runs on standard Apache/MySQL 8 without requiring Node.js, Supervisor, or Docker on the production server.

Architecture Overview

graph TD
    User([User in ChatGPT / Codex]) <--> Host[ChatGPT / Codex Host]
    subgraph Plugin Package [Plugin Package]
        PManifest[plugin.json + mcp.json]
        PSkills[skills/create-microtool/SKILL.md]
    end
    subgraph Backend [MicroTool Hub - Laravel Backend]
        OAuthEndpoint[OAuth 2.1 / RFC 9728 Discovery]
        MCPEndpoint[Streamable HTTP /mcp]
        DataTools[File & Project Service Tools]
        RenderTool[render_microtool_widget]
        Storage[Private Storage Sandbox]
        MySQL[(MySQL 8 Database)]
    end
    subgraph ChatGPT Chat Stream [Sandboxed MCP App Iframe]
        Widget[Interactive MicroTool Widget - HTML/JS/CSS]
    end

    Host -->|Discovers Manifest| PManifest
    Host -->|Authorizes via PKCE| OAuthEndpoint
    Host -->|Executes Workflow| PSkills
    Host -->|JSON-RPC HTTP POST| MCPEndpoint
    MCPEndpoint --> DataTools
    DataTools --> Storage
    DataTools --> MySQL
    MCPEndpoint --> RenderTool
    RenderTool -.->|_meta.ui.resourceUri| Widget

Quick Start (Local Development)

1. Requirements

PHP 8.3 or higher (PHP 8.3, 8.4, 8.5)
Composer 2.x
SQLite or MySQL 8

2. Setup

git clone https://github.com/example/microtool-hub.git
cd microtool-hub

# Install dependencies
composer install

# Environment configuration
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

# Database migration & demo seeding
php artisan migrate --seed

# Launch development server
php artisan serve

Access the application in your browser at http://localhost:8000.

3. Default Demo Accounts

Creator Account: alex@microtoolhub.com / password123
Admin Account: admin@microtoolhub.com / adminpassword123

MCP Server Tools (All 24 Tools)

Tool Name	Type	Description	Safety Hints
`create_project`	Mutation	Initialize a new micro-tool workspace	`readOnly: false`
`list_projects`	Query	List workspaces owned by authenticated user	`readOnly: true`
`get_project`	Query	Get workspace details, file counts, and storage	`readOnly: true`
`update_project_metadata`	Mutation	Update name, description, category, visibility	`readOnly: false`
`delete_project`	Destructive	Delete workspace and all assets	`destructive: true`
`list_project_files`	Query	List files and directory tree	`readOnly: true`
`read_project_file`	Query	Read raw source code of a file	`readOnly: true`
`write_project_file`	Mutation	Save atomic source file (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.)	`readOnly: false`
`rename_project_file`	Mutation	Move or rename file	`readOnly: false`
`delete_project_file`	Destructive	Remove file from workspace	`destructive: true`
`create_project_directory`	Mutation	Create subfolder	`readOnly: false`
`validate_project`	Query	Validate index.html, tag balance, and quotas	`readOnly: true`
`get_project_status`	Query	Check quota usage and last snapshot	`readOnly: true`
`create_snapshot`	Mutation	Create version backup archive (ZIP)	`readOnly: false`
`list_snapshots`	Query	List project version history	`readOnly: true`
`compare_snapshots`	Query	Diff files between two versions	`readOnly: true`
`restore_snapshot`	Destructive	Roll back project to a snapshot	`destructive: true`
`preview_project`	Query	Generate sandbox URL	`readOnly: true`
`render_microtool_widget`	Render	Renders in-chat MCP Apps interactive widget	`ui.resourceUri: true`
`publish_project`	Mutation	Publish approved tool to community catalog	`readOnly: false`
`unpublish_project`	Destructive	Withdraw tool from public catalog	`destructive: true`
`fork_project`	Mutation	Clone public tool into user's account	`readOnly: false`
`search_tools`	Query	Search community directory	`readOnly: true`
`get_tool_details`	Query	Get public metadata and launch URL	`readOnly: true`

Testing & Validation

Run the complete automated test suite (15 tests, 151 assertions):

php artisan test

Pre-validate the ChatGPT Plugin manifest and packaging:

python c:/project/chatgptmcpguideskill/scripts/validate_plugin.py .

Deployment & Production

Refer to CPANEL_DEPLOYMENT.md for full instructions on setting up cPanel, MySQL 8, HTTPS, and Apache .htaccess authorization header rules.