Scalepad

MCP server for the ScalePad platform — Core, Lifecycle Manager, ControlMap, Backup Radar, and Quoter — built natively on the MCP SDK v2 (2026-07-28 spec) with dual-era serving: the same endpoint answers both legacy 2025-era initialize-handshake clients and modern envelope clients.

Architecture

Flat tool surface: every tool is exposed upfront in tools/list for universal client compatibility. Navigation tools are discovery aids, not gates.

Tool	Purpose
scalepad_navigate	Describe a product domain's tools (core, lifecycle-manager, controlmap, backup-radar, quoter) — a help/discovery aid, not a prerequisite
scalepad_status	Show credential status and available domains

Product domains

Domain	Tool prefix	Coverage
core	scalepad_core_	Unified platform data (read-only, US-only): clients, contacts, members, sites, opportunities, hardware/SaaS assets, product catalog, service contracts, tickets, integrations
lifecycle-manager	scalepad_lm_	Engagement/roadmap workflows: initiatives, goals, meetings, action items, assessments, deliverables, budgets, contracts, workspace
controlmap	scalepad_cm_	Compliance per client: risks, controls, evidence, policies, frameworks, assessments, action items (regions: us, eu, ca, au)
backup-radar	scalepad_br_	Read-only backup health and backup device inventory (regions: us, eu)
quoter	scalepad_quoter_	Quotes, catalog, contacts, suppliers, and standalone-OAuth helpers (defaults to the ScalePad-hosted Quoter API)

All tools are callable at any time; scalepad_navigate simply summarizes a domain's tools.

Credentials

One ScalePad API key (generated in the ScalePad app by an Administrator) covers every product; endpoints for products without an active subscription return 402.

Copy .env.example and set the variables below. Leave CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET empty in that file.

Environment variables (AUTH_MODE=env, default for stdio/local)

Variable	Required	Notes
SCALEPAD_API_KEY	For stdio and AUTH_MODE=env	Forwarded to api.scalepad.com as x-api-key
SCALEPAD_REGION	no	us (default), eu, ca, or au — selects the regional base URL for ControlMap (us/eu/ca/au) and Backup Radar (us/eu); Core and Lifecycle Manager are US-only
QUOTER_CLIENT_ID	no	Only for the standalone api.quoter.com OAuth path (Quoter Account > API Keys, Account Owner only)
QUOTER_CLIENT_SECRET	no	Paired with QUOTER_CLIENT_ID
MCP_TRANSPORT	no	stdio (default) or http
AUTH_MODE	no	gateway (Docker image and Compose default) or env. Gateway mode requires X-ScalePad-Api-Key on each /mcp request and never falls back to SCALEPAD_*. env uses those variables only after S2S auth succeeds.
CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET	Yes for HTTP	Service-to-service secret. The HTTP server logs an error and exits non-zero when this is empty or a known placeholder (changeme, your-s2s-secret, and similar copied example values). Compose will not start without it. Never commit a real value. The value is never logged.
MCP_ALLOW_INSECURE_DEV	no	Set to exactly 1 only for local development to start HTTP without CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET. The process logs a warning and does not enforce X-Gateway-S2S. The listener is forced to 127.0.0.1 even if MCP_HTTP_HOST is a wider address such as 0.0.0.0. A known placeholder secret is still refused.
MCP_HTTP_HOST	no	Bind address when MCP_TRANSPORT=http and CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET is set. When unset, the server binds 127.0.0.1. The container image sets 0.0.0.0.
MCP_HTTP_PORT	no	HTTP port. Defaults to 8080.

/health and /healthz stay unauthenticated and do not read credentials. The stdio transport does not use CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET.

Gateway headers (AUTH_MODE=gateway, hosted deployment)

Header	Required
X-Gateway-S2S	yes, when CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET is set
X-ScalePad-Api-Key	yes
X-ScalePad-Region	no
X-Quoter-Client-Id	no
X-Quoter-Client-Secret	no

In gateway mode credentials are bound per request from these headers. A /mcp request without X-ScalePad-Api-Key is rejected with a 401 JSON-RPC error before any MCP handling and never falls through to env credentials. /health stays unauthenticated.

X-Gateway-S2S signing

With MCP_TRANSPORT=http and CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET set, every /mcp request must include X-Gateway-S2S. A missing or invalid header returns 401 before vendor credentials are read.

The header value is t=<unix seconds>,v1=<hex>. v1 is HMAC-SHA256 (64 lowercase hex characters) of the ASCII string t=<unix seconds>, keyed with CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET. Timestamps more than 300 seconds from the server clock are rejected.

import { createHmac } from "node:crypto";

const t = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);
const v1 = createHmac("sha256", process.env.CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET).update(`t=${t}`).digest("hex");
const xGatewayS2s = `t=${t},v1=${v1}`;

Transports

• stdio (default): node dist/index.js — for Claude Desktop / CLI. Does not use CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET.
• HTTP: MCP_TRANSPORT=http node dist/index.js — serves /mcp (dual-era, legacy: 'stateless') plus /health and /healthz. Refuses to start until CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET is a real secret. MCP_HTTP_PORT defaults to 8080. With a secret set, MCP_HTTP_HOST is honored and defaults to 127.0.0.1 when unset. Without a secret, MCP_ALLOW_INSECURE_DEV=1 is the only way to start, and the listener is 127.0.0.1 only.

Development

export NODE_AUTH_TOKEN=$(gh auth token)   # GitHub Packages read access
npm ci
npm run build       # tsup (transpile-only; domains stay lazily importable)
npm test            # vitest (HTTP layer: health, 401 gate, dual-era tools/list, fail-closed S2S)
npm run smoke       # dual-era smoke against dist/index.js (loopback, insecure-dev bypass)
npm run typecheck

Domain handlers live in src/domains/<slug>.ts, each exporting export const handler: DomainHandler (see src/utils/types.ts), and are lazily loaded via src/domains/index.ts.

Local HTTP without a secret:

MCP_TRANSPORT=http MCP_ALLOW_INSECURE_DEV=1 npm start

Docker

The image listens on 0.0.0.0 inside the container (MCP_HTTP_HOST) and defaults to AUTH_MODE=gateway. That bind is safe only because startup refuses to run without a real CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET. Publish the port on loopback and pass the S2S secret. In gateway mode, ScalePad credentials arrive on each request as headers; they are not read from the environment.

docker build --build-arg NODE_AUTH_TOKEN=$(gh auth token) -t scalepad-mcp .
docker run \
  -e CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET="$CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET" \
  -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
  scalepad-mcp

Compose refuses to start when CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET is unset. The gateway service does not set SCALEPAD_API_KEY, QUOTER_CLIENT_ID, or QUOTER_CLIENT_SECRET, and it does not use env_file, so a project .env cannot inject static vendor credentials into the container. Compose still interpolates CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET from that file. It publishes 127.0.0.1:8080:8080:

CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET="$CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET" docker compose up

Single-tenant HTTP (AUTH_MODE=env) still requires the S2S secret, then uses SCALEPAD_API_KEY:

docker run \
  -e CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET="$CONDUIT_S2S_SECRET" \
  -e AUTH_MODE=env \
  -e SCALEPAD_API_KEY=your-value \
  -e SCALEPAD_REGION=us \
  -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
  scalepad-mcp

Local HTTP without a secret is development-only. It binds 127.0.0.1 only (a non-loopback MCP_HTTP_HOST, including 0.0.0.0, is overridden) and logs a warning:

MCP_TRANSPORT=http MCP_ALLOW_INSECURE_DEV=1 npm start

The image defaults to AUTH_MODE=gateway for hosted deployment behind the WYRE MCP gateway.

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.