Payment Ops Server

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An MCP server that lets Claude handle payment support — look up customers, review charges, and issue refunds — by orchestrating between Stripe and an internal orders database, with human approval required before any money moves.

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💡 Why This Exists

Stripe ships an official MCP server — but it only knows Stripe. Real companies wrap the payment provider with internal data and business rules. This server is that orchestration layer:

• 🔗 Joins Stripe payment data with internal order records via stripe_customer_id
• 📅 Enforces refund policy (no refunds older than 90 days)
• 🙋 Requires human confirmation before moving money
• 📝 Writes a full audit log of every refund to the orders DB

That's the layer every company has to build itself. The provider can't.

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🏗️ Architecture

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🛠️ Tools

Tool	Type	What it does
lookup_customer	🔍 Read	Merges internal DB record + live Stripe status by email
list_payments	🔍 Read	Lists recent Stripe PaymentIntents for a customer
get_order_history	🔍 Read	Returns full order history from internal DB
issue_refund	✏️ Write	Two-step: preview → confirm → refund Stripe + log DB
create_payment_link	✏️ Write	Generates a Stripe test payment link
revenue_summary	🔍 Read	Aggregates paid orders over a date range
flag_for_review	✏️ Write	Flags a charge in the audit log for manual review

Plus 2 resources (customer://email, payment://charge_id) and 2 prompts (daily_revenue_report, find_refund_candidates).

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🔒 Safety Design

Three layers — never trust the model alone for money-moving actions:

1. 🙋 Human-in-the-loop gate — issue_refund requires confirmed=True, which the model only sets after explicitly asking the user
2. 📅 Server-side business rule — refunds older than 90 days are rejected regardless of what the model requests
3. 🗝️ Least-privilege Stripe key — restricted key scoped to Charges + Customers + Refunds only, limits blast radius

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🗄️ Database Schema

customers
  id (uuid, pk)
  email (unique)
  name
  stripe_customer_id    ← join key to Stripe

orders
  id (uuid, pk)
  customer_id (fk)
  stripe_charge_id      ← Stripe PaymentIntent ID (pi_xxx)
  amount_cents
  currency
  status (paid / refunded / partially_refunded)
  created_at

refund_log              ← audit trail
  id (uuid, pk)
  order_id (fk)
  stripe_refund_id
  amount_cents
  reason
  refunded_by ("ai-assistant")
  created_at

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⚙️ Setup

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/srik4442/Payment-Ops-mcp.git
cd Payment-Ops-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Get a Stripe test key

1. Create a free account at stripe.com (test mode, no card needed)
2. Go to Developers → API keys → Create restricted key
3. Grant Write access to: Charges and Refunds, Customers, Payment Intents, Payment Links, Products
4. Copy the rk_test_... key

3. Configure environment

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env and add your key:
# STRIPE_API_KEY=rk_test_your_key_here
# DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///./payments.db

4. Seed test data

python scripts/seed.py

Creates 5 test customers in both your local DB and Stripe, each with 2–3 test charges.

5. Connect Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "payment-ops": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/src/mcp_server.py"],
      "env": {
        "STRIPE_API_KEY": "rk_test_your_key_here",
        "DATABASE_URL": "sqlite:////absolute/path/to/payments.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop — you should see payment-ops connected.

6. Run the demo

Type into Claude Desktop:

"A customer, [email protected], emailed about a double charge. Look into it and refund the most recent payment."

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🧪 Tests

python -m pytest tests/ --cov=src -v

24 tests · 99% coverage on business logic · Stripe client fully mocked (no real API calls in tests)

tests/test_payment_service.py::TestLookupCustomer::test_lookup_customer_merges_db_and_stripe PASSED
tests/test_payment_service.py::TestIssueRefund::test_issue_refund_preview_when_not_confirmed PASSED
tests/test_payment_service.py::TestIssueRefund::test_issue_refund_writes_refund_log_when_confirmed PASSED
tests/test_payment_service.py::TestIssueRefund::test_issue_refund_rejected_for_charge_older_than_90_days PASSED
...

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🤔 Tech Decisions

Why MCP instead of a backend script? A script automates one fixed workflow. MCP exposes capabilities to any AI client so a human can drive novel, multi-step support tasks in natural language — without pre-coding every path.

Why SQLite? Zero-config for a portfolio project. The ORM (SQLAlchemy) makes swapping to Postgres a one-line config change.

Why test mode only? Test mode uses the identical Stripe API and code path as live — the only difference is the key prefix. Switching to production is one environment variable.

Why a restricted Stripe key? Least-privilege: the key can only touch Charges, Customers, and Refunds. Even if the key were compromised, the blast radius is contained.

Why store pi_xxx IDs (PaymentIntent) instead of ch_xxx (Charge)? Modern Stripe workflows are built around PaymentIntents. Refunds via payment_intent work reliably across all payment methods.

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🎬 Demo

Prompt typed into Claude Desktop: "A customer, [email protected], emailed about a double charge. Look into it and refund the most recent payment."

STEP 1  Claude calls lookup_customer("[email protected]")
        → queries Orders DB → finds Sarah + Stripe customer ID

STEP 2  Claude calls list_payments(customer="cus_xxx")
        → queries Stripe (test mode) → returns recent charges

STEP 3  Claude PAUSES:
        "I found a duplicate $49.99 charge. Refund the most recent one? Please confirm."
        → human-in-the-loop gate before any money moves

STEP 4  You reply "yes"
        → Claude calls issue_refund(confirmed=True)
        → refund issued in Stripe
        → order status updated + audit row written to DB

STEP 5  Claude confirms:
        "Refunded $49.99 to Sarah (re_3To18wCLuf9LMqJ11xb4XutS).
         Logged in orders DB as duplicate-charge reversal."

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📄 Resume Bullet

AI Payment Operations Assistant (MCP Server) · Python, MCP SDK, Stripe API, SQLAlchemy, pytest

• Built a Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants perform payment support operations by orchestrating between the Stripe API and an internal order database, exposing 7 tools, resources, and prompt templates
• Implemented human-in-the-loop confirmation and server-side business rules to gate money-moving actions, with a full refund audit log written to the database for every transaction
• Applied production payment patterns — least-privilege restricted API keys, idempotency, and prompt-injection mitigation — and validated orchestration logic with a mocked-Stripe pytest suite at 99% coverage