canton

This Canton MCP server provides AI-assisted DAML development tooling via the Model Context Protocol. It exposes two main tools: daml_reason for analyzing DAML code, suggesting patterns, and validating business logic; and daml_automater for automating Canton environments, tests, and builds (spinning up Canton networks, running tests, and building DARs). Authentication is implemented using a cryptographic challenge-response flow to obtain a JWT token, which is then sent in the Authorization header for protected requests. The server is designed to be used over a local or hosted MCP endpoint (e.g., http://localhost:7284/mcp) and can be integrated with clients like Cursor or Claude Desktop by configuring the MCP connection details in their respective config files. When testing, you can list tools, call a tool with arguments, or perform interactive testing with the MCP inspector.

Prerequisites:

• Docker installed for the recommended dockerized setup (or use uv/ Python for development).
• Optional: Canonical DAML docs repository cloned locally for pattern recommendations.

Installation steps (Docker, recommended):

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the Canton MCP server directory.
2. Start the server stack with Docker:

docker-compose up -d

3. Verify the service is running:

curl http://localhost:7284/health

4. If you need local development, you can run with uv (recommended for development):

uv sync
uv run canton-mcp-server

Alternate local development (Python/uv or pip):

# Using uv (recommended)
uv sync --dev
uv run canton-mcp-server

# Or install in editable mode and run
pip install -e .
canton-mcp-server

Prerequisites recap:

• Docker or Python (uv) with a proper Python environment
• Canonical DAML docs directory (see CANONICAL_DOCS_PATH) for pattern recommendations

Tips and considerations:

• Set CANONICAL_DOCS_PATH to point at your local canonical-daml-docs directory to enable pattern recommendations from the DAML/Canton repos.
• For production use, ensure X402 payments are properly configured and the Canton facilitator URL is reachable; include a party ID in requests to avoid rejection.
• JWT tokens expire after a defined period; re-authenticate when needed and refresh the Authorization header accordingly.
• When using Claude Desktop or Cursor, configure the MCP connection with the correct URL and token header format; the server supports SSE transport over HTTP(S).
• If you experience connection issues, check Docker container logs (docker-compose logs -f or docker logs <container_name>) and ensure environment variables (JWT_SECRET, MCP_SERVER_URL) are correctly set.