Bounded Tools

A local, read-only MCP server (and a matching CLI) over bounded.tools' signed static API.

It exposes the parts of the site that are served as verifiable, content-addressed JSON — the Web-Build Conformance report and the SPDX SBOM — to any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, etc.), and verifies every response byte-for-byte against the site's Sigstore-signed sha256 manifest before handing it back. If the bytes a client would receive don't match the signed manifest, it refuses to return them.

It runs locally over stdio — the client spawns it as a subprocess. There is no hosted server and no network listener, which preserves the site's static / no-attack-surface posture.

A thin implementation of a generic core

This package is thin. All of the reusable machinery — the verifying fetch client, the sha256 manifest + Sigstore checks, and the VerbSpec → MCP (tools + resources) / VerbSpec → CLI projection — lives in @bounded-systems/static-mcp. bounded-tools-mcp supplies only:

• the verbs (src/verbs.ts) — get_conformance, get_sbom, each authored once as a @bounded-systems/verbspec VerbSpec;
• the resource catalog (src/catalog.ts) — the tools://… resources;
• the config values (src/config.ts) — the origin and expected signer identity; and
• the entry (src/index.ts) — which picks a surface and hands the spec to the core.

src/verbs.ts ─┐
src/catalog.ts ├─▶ buildToolsSpec(config) ─▶ @bounded-systems/static-mcp
src/config.ts ─┘        serveVerifiedStaticMcp(spec, config)   (MCP, stdio)
                        runStaticCli(spec, config, argv)        (CLI)

Two surfaces, one definition. verbspec projects each verb to both an MCP tool and a CLI subcommand. The exact same verb set backs the MCP tools and the CLI commands — no second definition, no drift.

What's exposed (and what isn't)

bounded.tools is a static site whose verifiable surface is intentionally small. Only artifacts the site serves as signed, content-addressed JSON are exposed here — each is fetched and verified byte-for-byte against the signed manifest:

Served as	Artifact	Exposed
signed JSON	api/v1/conformance.json	✅ get_conformance · tools://conformance
signed JSON	sbom.spdx.json	✅ get_sbom · tools://sbom
signed JSON	site.webmanifest	✅ tools://webmanifest (resource only)
signed HTML + Markdown	the blog (blog/*.html, blog/*.md)	❌ not JSON — see below

Honesty over surface area. The blog is covered by the signed manifest, but it is served as HTML + Markdown, not as a JSON feed or per-post JSON documents. The verified-static core fetches-and-JSON-parses each artifact, so exposing the blog as a "tool" would mean fabricating a JSON shape the site does not actually serve. It is therefore left out rather than faked. If bounded.tools later publishes a signed posts.json (and per-post JSON), list_posts / get_post verbs drop straight in, exactly as in site-mcp.

Install / run

Requires Node ≥ 18.17. The verbspec dependency is published to JSR, so installs resolve it through JSR's npm bridge — the included .npmrc sets @jsr:registry=https://npm.jsr.io. (Consuming from a fresh environment, add that one line to your npm config.)

# MCP server over stdio (what an MCP client launches):
npx -y @bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp

# CLI — the SAME verbs, printing the verified JSON:
npx -y @bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp get_conformance
npx -y @bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp get_sbom

The MCP server logs a readiness line to stderr (stdout is the MCP channel):

bounded-tools-mcp ready (stdio) → https://bounded.tools; signature mode=off

MCP client configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bounded-tools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp"],
      "env": { "BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_SIGNATURE_MODE": "warn" }
    }
  }
}

Resources

Resource URI	Endpoint	Contents
tools://conformance	api/v1/conformance.json	Web-Build Conformance Standard report (HTML / WCAG 2.2 / ARIA)
tools://sbom	sbom.spdx.json	SPDX software bill of materials
tools://webmanifest	site.webmanifest	W3C web app manifest (PWA site metadata)

Tools / CLI commands (read-only)

The same two verbs, on both surfaces:

Tool / command	Args	Returns
get_conformance	—	The Web-Build Conformance report
get_sbom	—	The SPDX software bill of materials

Resource reads and tool results carry a _meta.verification block (the manifest-relative path, source URL, the verified sha256, and the manifest signature status). The CLI prints the verified JSON; a verification failure exits non-zero with nothing on stdout.

Verification / trust model

The site publishes a single signed manifest, https://bounded.tools/site.sha256 (sha256sum format), and a Sigstore bundle over it, site.sha256.sigstore.json. The core enforces:

1. Per-file hash check (always on). Fetch the manifest once per process; for every resource, fetch it, SHA-256 the received bytes, and require that digest to equal the manifest entry. A tampered file, a stale CDN edge, or a MITM → mismatch → VerificationError instead of a response. A path absent from the manifest is likewise refused.
2. Manifest signature check (optional). BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_SIGNATURE_MODE=warn|require verifies the Sigstore bundle against the deploy workflow identity (…/bounded-systems/site/.github/workflows/deploy.yml@refs/heads/main, OIDC issuer https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com). This is the same keyless identity published in https://bounded.tools/provenance.json.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Meaning
BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_BASE_URL	https://bounded.tools	Origin serving the site + API + manifest
BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_SIGNATURE_MODE	off	off | warn | require
BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_SIGNER_IDENTITY	deploy workflow SAN	Expected Sigstore certificate identity
BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_SIGNER_ISSUER	GitHub Actions OIDC	Expected Sigstore OIDC issuer
BOUNDED_TOOLS_MCP_FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS	15000	Per-request fetch timeout

Development

npm install         # resolves @bounded-systems/static-mcp (npm) + verbspec (JSR bridge)
npm run build       # tsc → dist/
npm test            # node --test via tsx (server + CLI; no network)
npm run typecheck
node scripts/headless-check.mjs   # live end-to-end against bounded.tools

Publishing

One tag publishes the same version to three registries, mirrored. Pushing a v* tag runs publish.yml, which fans out to:

#	Registry	Identifier	Auth
1	npm	@bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp	trusted publishing (OIDC) + provenance
2	JSR (mirror)	@bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp	tokenless OIDC (npx jsr publish)
3	MCP Registry	io.github.bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp	GitHub-OIDC namespace auth (mcp-publisher)

There are no long-lived secrets — every registry authenticates with the job's short-lived GitHub Actions OIDC token (id-token: write). npm needs npm ≥ 11.5 (the workflow upgrades npm to guarantee this). The mcp-registry job is decoupled from the npm job (needs: verify, NOT needs: npm): the registry proves package ownership by reading the mcpName field off the already-published npm package, so it can run/retry independently.

[!IMPORTANT] Versions must stay in sync. The release version lives in four places that must all match: package.json, deno.json, server.json, and the v<version> git tag. The workflow's verify job hard-fails the whole release on any mismatch, so npm and JSR can never drift apart. The MCP Registry also requires package.json to carry "mcpName": "io.github.bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp" (it reads that field off the published npm package to prove ownership).

One-time setup (maintainer) — do these BEFORE the first tag

(a) npm — Trusted Publisher (on npmjs.com)

1. Sign in as an owner of the @bounded-systems scope.
2. Open the package page for @bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp → Settings → Trusted Publisher. For a brand-new package you may need to publish 0.1.0 once manually (or create the package), then switch to trusted publishing.
3. Choose GitHub Actions and enter:
   • Organization / user: bounded-systems
   • Repository: bounded-tools-mcp
   • Workflow filename: publish.yml
   • Environment: (leave blank)
4. Save. No token is generated or stored anywhere.

(b) JSR — create + link the package (on jsr.io)

1. Sign in to jsr.io with GitHub and create the package @bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp under the @bounded-systems scope.
2. Open the package's Settings tab → under GitHub Repository enter bounded-systems/bounded-tools-mcp and click Link. Linking the repo enables tokenless OIDC publishing from this workflow.

(c) MCP Registry — nothing to pre-authorize

The io.github.bounded-systems/* namespace is auto-authorized via GitHub OIDC: because this repo lives under github.com/bounded-systems, mcp-publisher login github-oidc proves ownership from the Actions run itself.

Cut a release (the single command)

# 1. Bump the version in ALL of: package.json, deno.json, server.json. Commit.
# 2. Tag with the SAME version and push — this is the only command:
git tag v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0

Local dry-runs (verify without publishing)

npm pack --dry-run                                   # npm tarball contents
npx --yes jsr publish --dry-run --allow-slow-types   # JSR (or: deno publish --dry-run --allow-slow-types)
mcp-publisher validate ./server.json                 # MCP Registry schema check

bounded-tools-mcp depends on @bounded-systems/static-mcp; that core is published independently (its own v* tag → JSR + npm) before cutting this tag.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.