outflow-mcp
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes a live Outflow architecture
graph as context for AI coding agents — Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or any
other MCP-compatible client. Lets an agent ask "what does this file depend
on", "what breaks if I change this", or "did my last batch of edits introduce
a circular dependency" against your workspace's real, currently-live graph.
It's a thin client over Outflow's existing /api/v1 REST API and the
workspace graph routes — no graph logic
is duplicated here.
This package is developed inside the main Outflow monorepo but published
from a standalone public mirror: https://github.com/laurells/outflow-mcp
— that's the repo MCP registries/crawlers point at, and where npm publish
runs from. Changes here get synced there before each release.
Setup
- Create an API key for the workspace you want to expose. In Outflow,
go to workspace settings → API Keys → create one. The raw key (
ofk_...)
is shown once — copy it.
- Find your workspace ID — it's in the workspace URL
(
.../workspace/<id>/...) or workspace settings.
- Build the server:
cd packages/mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
- Add it to your MCP client config. For Claude Code, add to your MCP
settings (
claude mcp add or the equivalent config file):
{
"mcpServers": {
"outflow": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/absolute/path/to/outflow/packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
"env": {
"OUTFLOW_BASE_URL": "https://your-outflow-domain.com",
"OUTFLOW_API_KEY": "ofk_...",
"OUTFLOW_WORKSPACE_ID": "your-workspace-id"
}
}
}
}
OUTFLOW_BASE_URL defaults to http://localhost:3000
if omitted.
| Tool | Use it to ask |
|---|
find_node | Is this file tracked? What's its ID? |
list_nodes | What's deprecated / low health / a given type? |
get_dependencies | What does this file rely on? |
get_impact | What breaks if I change this file? (blast radius) |
find_path | How are these two files connected? |
get_architecture_health | What's the overall health grade and at-risk nodes? |
find_architecture_smells | Any circular deps, god nodes, or dead code right now? |
get_architecture_graph | Give me the whole graph at a zoom level. |
get_last_session_recap | What happened in my last coding session? |
All tools that take a path accept a partial match (e.g. "ApiClient" will
match src/ApiClient.ts) — you never need to know Outflow's internal
file::/method:: ID format. An ambiguous partial match returns an error
listing the candidates instead of guessing.
Notes
- This package is standalone — it is never bundled into
server/ or web/,
and has no build-time dependency on them. It only talks to a running
Outflow instance over HTTP using an API key, so it works equally well
pointed at localhost or a deployed instance.
get_dependencies/get_impact and find_architecture_smells/find_path
call workspace graph routes that (as of this package's introduction) were
extended to accept Authorization: Bearer ofk_... alongside the existing
cookie-session auth — see server/src/graph/pathRouter.ts and
smellsRouter.ts.