Axiom — Advanced Math MCP Server

Node.js >=20

Exact symbolic and numerical mathematics for LLMs — a real computer algebra system (Giac/Xcas) behind the Model Context Protocol, and behind a shell command. Published as axiom-math.

Quick start

As a CLI, straight away:

npx -y axiom-math compute 'integrate(sin(x)^3,x)'   # -cos(x)+cos(x)^3/3
npx -y axiom-math verify 'diff(x^3,x) = 3*x^2'      # exit 0 — it holds

As an MCP server, in any client's config:

{ "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "axiom-math"] }

As an agent skill — drop in skills/axiom-math/SKILL.md, which teaches an agent the three commands and their exit codes.

Why Axiom?

LLMs often make calculation errors, especially with symbolic math, exact fractions, and multi-step problems. Axiom provides verified, exact results through two layers:

• math.js — Fast numerical evaluation (arithmetic, trigonometry, matrices)
• Giac/Xcas WASM — Symbolic computation (calculus, algebra, equation solving)

Benchmark Results (GLM-5.1, May 2026)

Key insights:

• Phase 0 grader (LaTeX/Unicode normalization + symbolic equivalence) is the dominant value driver across all datasets
• CAS-quick lifted from 26.7% (April pre-grader) to 70% (post-grader) — the biggest single jump
• Omni-MATH ≥7 is at ceiling for current LLM+CAS setups; needs fundamentally different approaches (Lean/Coq, fine-tuning, RAG)

Full results: benchmark/results/ and docs/superpowers/specs/ (per-phase analysis)

Features

Axiom exposes 3 MCP tools. Almost everything flows through compute, a single gateway that parses a CAS-style problem string and routes it to the right internal engine — so callers learn one tool, not dozens.

What compute covers

compute recognizes CAS-style verbs and dispatches across these domains. Anything it doesn't recognize falls through to raw Giac/Xcas evaluation.

Installation

The package is axiom-math on npm. Nothing to install for normal use — npx fetches and caches it:

npx -y axiom-math compute '2+2'

Or install it so the axiom-math command is on your PATH:

npm install -g axiom-math

Node.js >= 20 required. The first run downloads about 3.8 MB (the CAS engine compiled to WebAssembly) and takes a few seconds; later runs come from the npx cache.

From source

For contributors, or to run a modified build:

git clone https://github.com/tufantunc/axiom-advanced-math-mcp.git
cd axiom-advanced-math-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Docker

# Build and run
docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d

# Check logs
docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f

# Stop
docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml down

Usage

CLI (STDIO Transport)

# Run with stdio transport (default)
npm start

# Development mode
npm run dev

Claude Desktop integration:

// ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": [
    {
      "name": "axiom-math",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "axiom-math"]
    }
  ]
}

Running from a local checkout instead of npm — point args at the built entry point:

"args": ["/path/to/axiom-advanced-math-mcp/dist/cli.js"]

Command line

The same binary works as a one-shot CLI, so agents can use it as a skill with no MCP configuration. With no arguments it is the MCP server; with a subcommand it runs one computation and exits.

npx -y axiom-math compute 'integrate(sin(x)^3,x)'
npx -y axiom-math compute -q 'solve(x^2-4=0,x)'     # {-2, 2}
npx -y axiom-math verify 'sin(x)^2+cos(x)^2 = 1'    # exit 0 if true
npx -y axiom-math plot 'sin(x)' -o wave.svg
echo 'diff(x^3,x)' | npx -y axiom-math compute -q   # 3*x^2

Exit codes: 0 success · 1 tool or usage error · 2 verify checked the claim and it is false.

2 is a mathematical verdict, so a claim that never got checked does not use it: one that fails to parse, or that the CAS cannot evaluate, exits 1 with nothing on stdout. axiom-math verify '...' && ... therefore never reads a syntax error as a disproof.

A ready-to-use agent skill is in skills/axiom-math/SKILL.md.

HTTP Transport

# Start HTTP server (default: http://127.0.0.1:3000)
npm run start:http

# Development HTTP
npm run dev:http

The HTTP transport is stateless: every POST /mcp is handled independently, no Mcp-Session-Id is issued, and no session state is kept between requests. This server sends no server-initiated notifications, so nothing is lost — and it scales horizontally with no shared state.

Security: there is no authentication and no rate limiting. The default bind address is 127.0.0.1, but docker/docker-compose.yml sets MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0. If you expose the port, put it behind a reverse proxy that authenticates and rate-limits — docker/reverse-proxy/ is a working, tested one (nginx + basic auth + per-client concurrency cap, with the app publishing no port of its own). SECURITY.md documents the full posture — what is protected, what is not, and how to report a vulnerability.

POST /mcp also validates the Host header against an allowlist (localhost, 127.0.0.1, [::1] by default) to block DNS rebinding — a malicious page can make a victim's browser resolve an attacker domain to 127.0.0.1 and reach this server through it. If you reach the server by a LAN address, hostname, or reverse-proxy domain other than loopback, set MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS or every POST /mcp request will get a 403. This check is not authentication — it only constrains which host names may reach the endpoint, nothing about who is asking.

Environment variables:

One bound is not configurable: a result over 100,000 characters is refused rather than returned, so an expression like 1:2000000 reports its element count instead of shipping 24 million characters into the caller's context.

Some inputs are refused rather than answered, because any answer would be meaningless. Arithmetic that evaluates to NaN (such as 0/0) is an error; an infinite result is returned with a warning, because a true infinity and a value that overflowed the range of a double are indistinguishable once computed. A t-test needs variation in whatever it actually tests — paired_t compares the differences, so it is those that must vary, while Welch's two_sample_t needs only one of the two samples to vary. A contingency table needs non-negative counts, no all-zero row or column, rows of equal length, and more than one row and column. A one-way ANOVA needs some within-group variation and more observations than groups. And any of these is refused when the values are large enough that the statistic itself overflows to infinity, because an overflowed statistic is no longer the statistic. A numerical method is refused when its expression does not depend on the variable it is solved or integrated over, or when the CAS answers symbolically rather than with a number — previously the leading term of that symbolic answer was reported as the result.

A system of differential equations written as a list — desolve([y'=z, z'=-y], x) — is rewritten into the matrix form the CAS solves and returns a solution for every function. The components come back in the order the equations were written, and the JSON envelope names them in a components field, because [[cos(x),-sin(x)]] is not interpretable without it.

Initial conditions must be given for every function, at the same point, or not at all — a partial set is refused rather than ignored. Also refused, each with its own reason: a system that is not linear in the unknown functions; coefficients that depend on the independent variable; a derivative of order above one (rewrite y''=z as y'=w, w'=z); more than nine equations; and a system the CAS cannot finish.

The infinite-result rule covers arithmetic evaluation. A symbolic +infinity from the CAS routes — a limit, a divergent integral — is a normal answer and carries no warning.

MCP Inspector

npm run inspect

Tool Reference

compute

The single gateway for all math. Pass a CAS-style problem string; the router parses it and dispatches to the right engine.

Examples:

{ "problem": "solve(x^2 - 5*x + 6 = 0, x)" }
{ "problem": "int(x^2*sin(x), x)", "format": "latex" }
{ "problem": "lagrange(x*y, x+y, 1, [x, y])" }
{ "problem": "volume_tetrahedron([0,0,0],[1,0,0],[0,1,0],[0,0,1])" }
{ "problem": "binomial cdf n=10 k=3 p=0.5", "format": "json" }

verify

Independently check a mathematical claim. Useful as a second, tool-grounded opinion on a result the model produced.

Returns four fields: verified, evaluated, confidence, and checks_performed.

evaluated is the one to read first. It is false when no check produced a usable answer — the claim did not parse, or the CAS could not evaluate it — in which case verified: false means "unknown", not "refuted". Treating the two as the same turns a syntax error into a disproof.

plot

Render a 2D function as an SVG image.

Returns a base64-encoded SVG image (axes, grid, labels, asymptote detection) plus a text caption.

Prompts

The server also registers guided MCP prompts that chain compute/verify for multi-step workflows: solve-step-by-step, analyze-function, verify-identity, convert-units, analyze-dataset, solve-ode-system, and regression-workflow.

Run Benchmarks

Default production recipe (grader-v2 included automatically):

cd benchmark
npm install

# Set provider API key (one of):
export ZAI_API_KEY=...
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=...

# Run benchmarks (provider defaults from --zai/--anthropic/--openrouter flags)
npm run cas:quick:zai      # CAS-quick (60 problems, ~30 min)
npm run gsm8k:quick:zai    # GSM8K-quick (100 problems, ~30 min)
npm run math:quick:zai     # MATH L3-L5 quick (150 problems, ~75 min)

Optional ablation features (off by default)

• --features=output-hygiene — tool output post-processing (Unicode normalize, optional simplify, silent-failure warning). Marginal +1pp on CAS in live measurement.
• --features=grader-v3 — equation-RHS extraction + bare-comma-list set match. Marginal +1pp on CAS.
• --features=self-consistency — N=3 majority voting (variance reduction; 3× cost; no accuracy gain on CAS).

Example:

npm run cas:quick:zai -- --features=output-hygiene,grader-v3

See docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-*-results.md for live ablation analysis of every flag.

What we tried that didn't work

This project went through extensive ablation across five phases (Phase 0–4). The following experimental approaches were tested live and rejected:

• Phase 1: Structured JSON output with \boxed{} trailers — model paraphrased boxed content into LaTeX style, breaking answer extraction. Net regression on CAS.
• Phase 2: 8K token budget (tokens-8k) — gave the model more room to wander rather than recovering from truncation. Net regression −6.7pp on CAS.
• Phase 3: Self-consistency for accuracy — N=3 voting did not lift accuracy (Wang et al. literature gain not reproducible on CAS); kept as a methodology tool for variance reduction only.
• Phase 4: Olympiad-specific scaffolding prompt — engagement improved (no-tool-call rate 84% → 74%) but accuracy stayed at 0%. Olympiad-tier problems are out of scope for prompt-engineering interventions.

Each phase's per-problem analysis is in docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-*-results.md. The honest documentation of failures is preserved as a project archive.

Architecture

Compute gateway → router → domain handlers

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              MCP Protocol Layer (stdio / HTTP)               │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
        ┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
        ▼                     ▼                     ▼
   ┌─────────┐          ┌──────────┐          ┌─────────┐
   │ compute │          │  verify  │          │  plot   │
   └────┬────┘          └──────────┘          └─────────┘
        │  route() → extract args → dispatch
        ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Domain handlers: calculus, algebra, matrix, multivariable,  │
│  geometry / geometry3d, combinatorics, probability,          │
│  hypothesis testing, number theory, numerical methods, …     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
        │                     │                     │
        ▼                     ▼                     ▼
┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│   math.js    │     │  Giac/Xcas   │     │ Exact engine │
│ (numerical)  │     │  (symbolic)  │     │ (fractions)  │
└──────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └──────────────┘

compute never asks the caller to pick a handler. The router matches the problem string against ordered rules, the matching extractor parses arguments, and the dispatcher calls the corresponding domain handler. Unmatched input falls through to raw Giac/Xcas.

Response Format

Text-format responses are line-structured so LLMs (and the benchmark grader) can extract answers reliably:

{
  "content": [
    { "type": "text", "text": "Result: 400/11" },
    { "type": "text", "text": "Decimal: 36.3636363636" },
    { "type": "text", "text": "LaTeX: \\frac{400}{11}" },
    { "type": "text", "text": "" },
    { "type": "text", "text": "The answer is 400/11 (≈ 36.36)" }
  ],
  "isError": false
}

Benchmark Results

Datasets

How to Run

See Run Benchmarks above for the commands. In short, from the repository root:

npm run benchmark:zai         # quick sample, GLM-5.1
npm run benchmark:full:zai    # all datasets
npm run benchmark:l5:zai      # one difficulty tier

Swap :zai for :openrouter to change provider. The benchmark/ directory is a separate npm project with finer-grained scripts (cas:quick:zai, gsm8k:quick:zai, …); npm run benchmark:* from the root delegates to them.

Environment variables:

Development

Scripts

Testing

The suites are split. npm test runs the unit tests and needs no build; npm run test:integration builds first and exercises the packaged dist/ output, so it catches things the unit suite cannot — the shipped binary's argument dispatch, the MCP handshake, exit codes.

npm test                  # unit
npm run test:integration  # integration (runs npm run build first)
npm run test:watch        # unit, watch mode
npm run test:coverage     # unit, with coverage

Test coverage: unit + integration suite, 100% pass rate. Run npm test for the current count — it changes too often to keep a number here in sync.

WASM Build (Giac)

npm run build:giac:wasm

# Build a specific upstream ref instead of master
GIAC_REF=v1.9.x npm run build:giac:wasm

This runs scripts/build-giac-wasm.sh, which builds docker/build-giac-wasm/Dockerfile with docker build (no Compose file involved) and writes giac.wasm.js straight into src/server/giac/ — no manual copy step needed. Requires Docker Desktop (or another Docker daemon) running locally. Per-task build logs land under logs/giac-build/.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the setup, the checks CI runs, and the few things about this codebase that are not obvious from reading it.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later — see LICENSE.

Axiom embeds Giac/Xcas, which is GPL-3.0-or-later, so the combined work carries the same license. Details and attribution: THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Does the GPL affect my agent?

No. Your agent talks to Axiom over the Model Context Protocol — a separate process, over stdio or HTTP. Separate programs communicating at arm's length are not a combined work, so running Axiom alongside your own agent puts no license obligation on your code, whatever license it uses. Running the software is unrestricted under the GPL, including running it as a service.

The copyleft terms apply when you redistribute Axiom itself — shipping it (modified or not) inside a product you hand to someone else. In that case, pass along the source under GPL-3.0 and keep the notices intact.