Context

Local Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with semantic search (RAG) over code repositories. Exposes the context of multiple projects to external AI clients — Claude.ai, Gemini, Claude Code — eliminating the need to manually repass context at each session.

Stack: Python · FastMCP · Qdrant · sentence-transformers · Next.js · Docker · Cloudflare Tunnel

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Prerequisites

Make sure the items below are installed before continuing:

Tool	Minimum version	Check
Python	3.11	python3 --version
Docker	24.0	docker --version
Docker Compose	2.20	docker compose version
Node.js	18.0	node --version
npm	9.0	npm --version
Git	any	git --version
cloudflared	any	cloudflared --version

A Cloudflare account with an active domain is required for remote connectivity (Phase 3).

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Installation

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ericlimabr/mcp-context.git
cd mcp-context

# 2. Copy the environment variables file
cp .env.example .env

# 3. Run setup — installs Python dependencies via uv and starts Qdrant
make setup

Note on GITHUB_TOKEN: The .env file includes a GITHUB_TOKEN variable for read access to repositories. To get this token, go to your GitHub Settings > Developer settings > Personal access tokens. Generate a new token and paste it into your .env file.

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Configuration

1. Environment variables

Edit the .env file created in the previous step:

# Root path where your projects are stored on the machine
PROJECTS_ROOT=/home/your-user/projects

# Access password for the administrative panel
ADMIN_PASSWORD=choose-a-strong-password

2. Configure Cloudflare Tunnel

# Authenticate cloudflared with your Cloudflare account
cloudflared tunnel login

# Create the permanent tunnel
cloudflared tunnel create mcp-context

# Associate with your subdomain (replace yourdomain.com)
cloudflared tunnel route dns mcp-context mcp.yourdomain.com

Create cloudflared/config.yml in the project root (this file is gitignored). Replace <id> with the UUID printed by the tunnel create command above:

tunnel: mcp-context
credentials-file: /home/your-user/.cloudflared/<id>.json

ingress:
  - hostname: mcp.yourdomain.com
    service: http://localhost:17800
  - service: http_status:404

3. Create the frontend

This step is only needed once. It creates the Next.js project and removes the internal .git/ automatically:

make frontend-setup

4. Index the first project

Open the frontend, add a project path and trigger indexing:

make frontend
# Access http://localhost:17801

Or run the indexer directly from the terminal:

make index

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Running locally (development)

To start the MCP server with auto-reload (recommended while developing):

make dev

This starts Qdrant, the Cloudflare Tunnel, and the MCP server with hot-reload enabled. The server restarts automatically on every file change in server/.

To start all services in the background (MCP server, frontend, tunnel, Qdrant):

make server-dev

Available services:

Service	URL
MCP Server	http://localhost:17800
Frontend (admin + dashboard)	http://localhost:17801
Qdrant (API)	http://localhost:17810

Real-time logs are available in logs/:

tail -f logs/server.log    # MCP server
tail -f logs/frontend.log  # frontend
tail -f logs/tunnel.log    # Cloudflare Tunnel
make qdrant-logs           # Qdrant

To stop everything:

make stop

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Local deploy (all services in containers)

To run the project fully containerized — useful for simulating the production environment or having everything start together with Docker:

# First time: build the images
make prod-build

# Start all containers
make prod-up

# Stop everything
make prod-down

# Real-time logs
make prod-logs

Warning: make sure PROJECTS_ROOT in .env points to the correct directory before running prod-up. The MCP server container mounts that path to access local files.

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Make commands

Command	Description
make setup	First run: installs deps via uv and starts Qdrant
make frontend-setup	Creates the Next.js project in apps/frontend/ (once)
make dev	Starts Qdrant + tunnel + MCP server with auto-reload
make server-dev	Starts all services in the background
make stop	Stops all dev services
make server	Starts only the MCP server (port 17800)
make frontend	Starts only the Next.js frontend (port 17801)
make tunnel	Starts only the Cloudflare Tunnel
make index	Runs the indexing worker
make qdrant-up	Starts Qdrant via Docker Compose
make qdrant-down	Stops Qdrant
make qdrant-logs	Qdrant logs in real time
make prod-build	Build of all Docker images
make prod-up	Starts all containers
make prod-down	Stops all containers
make prod-logs	Logs of all containers in real time

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Repository structure

mcp-context/
├── server/                  # MCP Server (FastMCP/SSE, port 17800)
│   ├── main.py              # Entrypoint and MCP configuration
│   ├── tools/               # MCP tool definitions (planned)
│   ├── resources/           # MCP resource definitions (planned)
│   └── embeddings.py        # Local embedding model loading (planned)
├── indexer/                 # Project indexing worker (planned)
│   ├── worker.py            # Orchestrates indexing
│   ├── chunker.py           # Function-scope chunking
│   └── qdrant_client.py     # Qdrant client abstraction
├── apps/
│   └── frontend/            # Next.js app — admin panel + dashboard (port 17801)
│                            # Generated by make frontend-setup
├── cloudflared/             # Cloudflare Tunnel config (gitignored)
│   └── config.yml
├── docs/
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md      # Detailed system architecture
│   ├── DECISIONS.md         # Architecture decisions
│   ├── ENDPOINTS.md         # Endpoints documentation
│   └── ROADMAP.md           # Implementation phases
├── logs/                    # Service logs in dev (gitignored)
├── .pids/                   # Process PIDs in dev (gitignored)
├── qdrant_data/             # Persisted Qdrant data (gitignored)
├── config.json              # Project configuration (gitignored)
├── .env                     # Environment variables (gitignored)
├── .env.example             # Environment variables template
├── docker-compose.yml       # Qdrant for development
├── docker-compose.prod.yml  # All services for local deploy
├── Makefile                 # Command shortcuts
├── pyproject.toml           # Python project and dependencies (uv)
├── CONTEXT.md               # Project context for LLMs
└── README.md                # This file

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Known limitations

• The server depends on the local machine being on to work remotely via Cloudflare Tunnel
• The Qdrant index reflects the state of the code at the time of the last indexing — configure a post-commit hook to keep the index updated automatically after each commit
• Binary files, images and assets are not indexed
• The embedding model (jina-embeddings-v2-base-code, ~160 MB) is automatically downloaded on the first run via sentence-transformers