devcontext

DevContext is an MCP server designed to provide autonomous, project-centric context awareness by continuously learning from your codebase and development patterns. It integrates with Cursor Rules to manage context lifecycle, including initializing, updating, retrieving, and finalizing context as you work. The server uses TursoDB as a persistent store and exposes a standardized MCP interface that IDE clients can communicate with through the MCP SDK. Tools and rules work together to keep context aligned with your current project scope, documentation, and tasks, making it easier to access relevant information during development.

To use it, first ensure you have TursoDB credentials and the MCP server running via npx devcontext@latest. In your Cursor (or any MCP-compatible IDE), configure the mcp.json to point to the DevContext server. The key MCP tools you’ll interact with are:

• initialize_conversation_context: sets up the initial project-related context at the start of your session.
• update_conversation_context: refreshes context as code changes or new messages come in.
• retrieve_relevant_context: pulls in the most relevant context when you need it for a task.
• record_milestone_context: logs significant achievements or milestones during a session.
• finalize_conversation_context: finalizes and publishes the context at the end of your session.

DevContext also emphasizes the Cursor Rules system for autonomous context management, external documentation retrieval, and an integrated task workflow. By following the built-in rules and using the provided context retrieval methods, you can maintain a coherent project-wide context that adapts to ongoing development activities and documentation needs.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 18+ (recommended)
• Cursor IDE with MCP support
• TursoDB account (or an equivalent SQL store) for project-specific persistence

Step 1: Install prerequisites and tools

• Ensure Node.js is installed (node -v should show 18.x or newer)
• Install Cursor IDE if you haven’t already and ensure MCP support is enabled

Step 2: Set up TursoDB (as described in the README)

• Sign up for TursoDB at https://turso.tech/
• Install Turso CLI (optional but recommended) curl -sSfL https://get.turso.tech/install.sh | bash
• Authenticate with Turso turso auth login
• Create a project database for DevContext turso db create devcontext
• Retrieve credentials for later use turso db show devcontext --url turso db tokens create devcontext

Step 3: Configure the MCP server in Cursor

1. Create or edit the Cursor MCP configuration file at .cursor/mcp.json with the following content:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devcontext": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "devcontext@latest"],
      "enabled": true,
      "env": {
        "TURSO_DATABASE_URL": "your-turso-database-url",
        "TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN": "your-turso-auth-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Replace the placeholders with the values obtained from Step 2 (database URL and token).
3. Start or reload Cursor so it picks up the new MCP configuration.

Step 4: Run and verify

• Ensure the DevContext MCP server starts via npx devcontext@latest and connects to TursoDB.
• In Cursor, invoke the DevContext MCP tools as part of your development workflow (initialize, update, retrieve context, etc.).

Notes and tips:

• The MCP configuration uses npx to fetch the latest DevContext package. If you want to pin a specific version, replace devcontext@latest with devcontext@x.y.z.
• Ensure TURSO_DATABASE_URL uses the correct URL format for your TursoDB instance (as shown in the example in the README).
• Keep TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN secure and do not commit it to version control.
• The DevContext server is designed to work with a single project database; do not reuse the same TursoDB instance for multiple projects unless you isolate data properly.
• If you encounter connection issues, verify network access to TursoDB and that the database URL and token are correctly configured.
• The npm package name used in npx is devcontext; you can adjust the mcp.json to point to a private registry if needed.