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hetaobackend/mcp-server-patterns

v0.1.0Apache-2.0

Reference patterns for designing, evaluating, integrating, and debugging MCP servers without changing the active MCP configuration.

GitHub

MCP Server Patterns

The problem

Teams adopting MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers keep hitting the same failure classes: duplicated servers that re-wrap capability the host already has, tools with unclear read/write boundaries, missing auth documentation, and debugging sessions that cannot tell transport failure from application failure. The knowledge to prevent this exists, but it is rarely written down where the agent can use it at decision time.

This Plugin installs one reference Skill: checklists and questions for evaluating, designing, integrating, and debugging MCP servers. It is guidance only — it never changes MCP settings.

Try it

Use the mcp-server-patterns skill and evaluate whether adding a GitHub MCP server makes sense
for this project.

Expected result: the agent walks the evaluation questions (does it beat direct tools, read-only or mutating, auth model, what data leaves the machine, overlap with existing servers), states a recommendation, and names the failure modes to expect.

What the Skill does

  • Evaluation: eight questions covering problem fit, read/write boundary, provenance/integrity, authentication and least-privilege scopes, full egress destination/retention/sharing/training behavior, retry safety, confirmation for high-impact writes, discoverability, and tool overlap.
  • Design checklist: tool boundaries, stable schemas, good errors, minimal secrets/scopes, read-vs-write-aware retry semantics, idempotency or deduplication, disabled retries for unsafe writes, previews/confirmation for consequential production actions, and side-effect ownership.
  • Integration checklist: verify provenance/integrity, document auth/scopes/environment and full downstream data handling, confirm safe write/retry semantics, avoid duplicate coverage, and choose global vs project-local placement.
  • Debugging checklist: confirm the credential variable name reaches the actual server process, design (but never execute) a preferably read-only sandbox reproduction, warn and get explicit confirmation for unavoidable mutation, and classify transport (startup/DNS/TLS/connection/ negotiation), server/application, auth/authorization, or client-routing failures.

Requirements

  • No additional executables, accounts, or paid services. This is a knowledge Skill with no scripts and no MCP server of its own.
  • Platform-independent; supported wherever MiniMax Code Agent Plugins 1.0 Skills are available.

Data and network

  • No network access. The Skill designs requests but never invokes an MCP server or sends them.
  • No credentials required or handled. It may ask whether a credential variable is present, but it never requests, reads, or exposes the value.
  • Guidance only; it does not install servers, authenticate, or modify MCP configuration files.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.