cert-atlas-mcp

An MCP server over Cert Atlas — the open index of certification exam blueprints. It lets any AI assistant (Claude, Cursor, …) search exams, pull a full structured blueprint, and compare certifications, with a free practice link on every result.

Cert Atlas publishes machine-readable blueprints for 1,673 exams across 223 certifying bodies — exam domains and topic weights, passing scores, question counts, durations, prerequisites, retake/renewal rules, languages, official source links, and reviewed study guidance where available. This server exposes that dataset to agents over MCP. Read-only, public data, no API key.

Tools

Resources & prompts

• Resources: cert-atlas://index (the master index) and cert-atlas://exam/{exam_id} (a single blueprint) — agents can browse or attach the data directly.
• Prompts: study-plan (arg: cert) builds a topic-weighted plan grounded in the real blueprint; compare-certs (arg: certs) drives a structured comparison.

Practice-link funnel

Every exam returned by any tool carries its free QuizForge practice link with UTM attribution — ?utm_source=mcp&utm_medium=cert_atlas&utm_campaign=<tool> (existing query preserved) — so the server doubles as a measurable referral funnel. Links are factual and singular (one per exam); the value to the user is a real free practice exam.

Install

npm install
npm run build

Use with Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json, or via claude mcp add):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cert-atlas": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/cert-atlas/mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Or, once published to npm (works in Claude Desktop/Code and Cursor — .cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cert-atlas": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "cert-atlas-mcp"] }
  }
}

Example prompts

• "What domains are on the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam, and how is it weighted?"
• "Compare CompTIA Security+ and CySA+ — which is harder and which is cheaper?"
• "What are the prerequisites and passing score for CISSP?"
• "What nursing certifications does Cert Atlas cover?"

How it works

The server reads the Cert Atlas dataset, preferring local files over the network:

1. A bundled snapshot of index.json (+ vendors.json) ships in the package → instant, offline search with a tiny install.
2. Individual blueprints are lazy-fetched from raw.githubusercontent.com/hans6883/cert-atlas/master on demand and cached, so the install stays small and data stays fresh.
3. When run inside the cert-atlas repo, it reads the canonical ../data/ directly (always in sync).

The bundled snapshot is regenerated from ../data on every npm run build (see scripts/copy-data.mjs).

What "verified" means

Records carry a credential block when the credential's identity has been checked on the issuer's own site: whether the issuer offers an examination for it, the credential type, the exam code exactly as the issuer prints it (or none), and the official content outline. A credential the issuer offers no examination for (a nomination-only grade, a membership grade, a training programme) is reported as such -- no blueprint, domain weights or practice link are shown for it. Lifecycle facts (retirements, scheduled retirements, replacements) are checked the same way and dated.

Environment variables (all optional)

Remote HTTP build

The same four tools are also served over the MCP Streamable HTTP transport, for hosting with no client install:

npm run build
npm run start:http        # PORT (default 3000), HOST (default 0.0.0.0)
# POST /mcp   — MCP endpoint
# GET  /health — liveness probe -> {"ok":true}

It's stateless (a fresh server per request), so it scales horizontally with no session store. A Dockerfile is included:

docker build -t cert-atlas-mcp .
docker run -p 3000:3000 cert-atlas-mcp

Put it behind your reverse proxy (TLS) and point HTTP-capable MCP clients at https://<host>/mcp.

Live endpoint: https://mcp.quizforge.ai/mcp (health: https://mcp.quizforge.ai/health) — add it as a custom/remote connector in any HTTP-capable MCP client, no install.

Publishing

npm (stdio package):

npm login
npm publish --access public      # runs the build via prepublishOnly

Official MCP registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io) — uses server.json; package.json carries the matching mcpName for ownership verification:

# one-time: install the publisher CLI, then authenticate via GitHub
mcp-publisher login github
mcp-publisher publish            # reads ./server.json

smithery.yaml lets Smithery list it. Other directories (Glama, PulseMCP, mcp.so) auto-index from npm + GitHub once published.

License

MIT — see the repo LICENSE. Cert Atlas indexes publicly available exam structure only (no proprietary questions); blueprint content belongs to the respective certifying bodies.