spartan-ng-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes the Spartan Angular UI ecosystem as intelligent tools for AI-powered IDEs and assistants. Discover components, browse Brain/Helm APIs, fetch source code, generate install commands, detect project context, and use page-level building blocks — all through the MCP protocol.

Why

Spartan's dual-layer architecture (Brain for headless logic + Helm for styled components) is powerful but has a learning curve. AI assistants need structured access to component APIs, source code, and installation patterns to generate correct Angular code. This MCP server bridges that gap — turning the entire Spartan ecosystem into a queryable, context-aware tool surface.

Features

• 56 components with full Brain/Helm API details (directives, inputs, outputs, signal models)
• 17 page-level blocks (sidebar, login, signup, calendar variants)
• Fuzzy search across components, blocks, and documentation
• TypeScript source code fetching from GitHub with intelligent caching
• Project context detection — Angular version, Nx workspace, Tailwind config, zoneless mode
• Installation command generation — nx generate or npm install with peer dependency resolution
• Post-install audit — verification checklist for Tailwind preset, Brain/Helm pairing, OnPush
• Runtime registry refresh — pick up new Spartan components without an MCP update
• Skills installer — deploy spartan-ng-skills to any Angular project

Quick Start

Install from npm

npm install -g spartan-ng-mcp

Configure Your IDE

Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spartan-ng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "spartan-ng-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spartan-ng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "spartan-ng-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code (Copilot)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "spartan-ng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "spartan-ng-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: The GITHUB_TOKEN is optional but recommended. Without it, GitHub API requests are limited to 60/hr. With a token (no scopes needed — public repo access only), the limit is 5000/hr.

Using a .env file

Instead of putting tokens in IDE config files (which may get committed to git), you can create a .env file in your project root:

GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here
SPARTAN_CACHE_TTL_HOURS=48

The MCP server loads .env automatically on startup. Make sure .env is in your .gitignore.

Alternative: Install from Source

git clone https://github.com/carlospalacin/spartan-ng-mcp.git
cd spartan-ng-mcp
npm install
npm run build

When installing from source, replace "command": "npx" and "args": ["-y", "spartan-ng-mcp"] with "command": "node" and "args": ["/absolute/path/to/spartan-ng-mcp/dist/index.js"] in the IDE configurations above.

Tools

Discovery

| Tool | Description | | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan_list | List all components and blocks. Filter by type or block category. | | spartan_search | Fuzzy search across components, blocks, and docs. Ranked results with scores. | | spartan_view | Detailed component view: Brain directives, Helm components, inputs/outputs, examples, install snippets. | | spartan_dependencies | Component dependency graph with direct, transitive, and reverse dependencies. |

Source Code

| Tool | Description | | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan_source | Fetch Brain/Helm TypeScript source code from GitHub. | | spartan_block_source | Fetch block source code with shared utilities and extracted imports. |

Documentation

| Tool | Description | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | spartan_docs | Fetch documentation topics: installation, CLI, theming, dark-mode, typography, figma, changelog. |

Installation

| Tool | Description | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan_install_command | Generate nx generate @spartan-ng/cli:ui or npm install commands. Auto-detects package manager. | | spartan_audit | Post-installation checklist: Angular project, Tailwind, Spartan preset, Brain/Helm pairing, OnPush. | | spartan_install_skills | Install spartan-ng-skills into a project's .claude/skills/spartan/ directory. |

Project Context

| Tool | Description | | ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan_project_info | Detect Angular/Nx config, Tailwind version, installed packages, package manager, zoneless mode. | | spartan_project_components | List installed Brain/Helm packages with missing pair detection. |

Cache & Registry

| Tool | Description | | -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan_cache | Cache status, clear, or rebuild. Shows memory + file stats and GitHub rate limit. | | spartan_registry_refresh | Refresh registry from live Spartan Analog API. Reports added/updated/removed components. |

Resources

MCP resources provide direct data access via the spartan:// URI scheme:

| URI | Description | | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | | spartan://components/list | All components with Brain/Helm availability | | spartan://blocks/list | All blocks grouped by category | | spartan://project/info | Registry metadata | | spartan://component/{name}/api | Brain & Helm API specs for a component | | spartan://component/{name}/examples | Code examples for a component |

Prompts

Pre-built workflow templates for common tasks:

| Prompt | Description | | ------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | spartan-get-started | Installation + API overview + basic usage for any component | | spartan-compare-layers | Side-by-side Brain vs Helm API comparison | | spartan-implement | Step-by-step feature implementation guide | | spartan-use-block | Block integration guide with source fetching | | spartan-migrate | Version migration guide with Nx generators |

Architecture

src/
├── index.ts                  # Entry point — stdio transport
├── server.ts                 # McpServer factory + tool registration
├── tools/                    # 14 MCP tools (one file per group)
│   ├── discovery.ts          # list, search, view, dependencies
│   ├── source.ts             # component + block source
│   ├── docs.ts               # documentation topics
│   ├── install.ts            # CLI commands + audit
│   ├── context.ts            # project detection
│   ├── cache.ts              # cache + registry refresh
│   ├── dependencies.ts       # dependency graph
│   └── skills.ts             # skills installer
├── data/                     # API clients
│   ├── analog-api.ts         # Spartan Analog API (primary data source)
│   ├── github.ts             # GitHub API (source code)
│   └── types.ts              # Shared TypeScript types
├── registry/                 # Hybrid component registry
│   ├── registry.ts           # Loader + search + runtime refresh
│   ├── schema.ts             # Zod validation schemas
│   └── registry.json         # Static registry (56 components, 17 blocks)
├── cache/                    # Multi-layer caching
│   ├── memory-cache.ts       # LRU with TTL (5 min)
│   ├── file-cache.ts         # Versioned file cache (24h)
│   └── cache-manager.ts      # Orchestrator: memory → file → network
├── project/                  # Project scanner
│   ├── detector.ts           # Angular/Nx/Tailwind/zoneless detection
│   └── types.ts              # SpartanProjectContext type
├── search/fuzzy.ts           # fuzzysort wrapper
├── errors/errors.ts          # SpartanError + 17 error codes
├── resources/spartan.ts      # spartan:// URI handlers
├── prompts/workflows.ts      # 5 workflow templates
└── utils/                    # Pure utilities
    ├── constants.ts           # URLs, timeouts, allowed hosts
    ├── fetch.ts               # HTTP client with SSRF protection
    ├── html.ts                # HTML parsing + extraction
    └── imports.ts             # TypeScript import/export extraction

Data Resolution (3-tier)

Discovery (list, search)    →  Static Registry (instant, offline)
Details (view, examples)    →  Memory Cache → File Cache → Analog API
Source code (source, block) →  Memory Cache → File Cache → GitHub API

1. Static Registry (registry.json) — committed per release, zero latency
2. Analog API — structured JSON from spartan.ng, cached 30min (memory) + 24h (file)
3. GitHub API — TypeScript source code, cached 24h, rate-limited

Spartan UI Concepts

Components have two API layers:

• Brain — headless, logic-only primitives. Attribute selectors like [brnDialogTrigger]. Provides ARIA, keyboard handling, and focus management.
• Helm — styled wrappers using hostDirectives to compose Brain. Mixed selectors: [hlmBtn], hlm-dialog-content, [hlmCard],hlm-card. Uses CVA (Class Variance Authority) for variants and Tailwind for styling.

Some Helm components wrap @angular/cdk directly instead of Brain (DropdownMenu, ContextMenu, Menubar).

Blocks are page-level building blocks — complete Angular components combining multiple Spartan components (sidebar layouts, login forms, calendar views).

Skills

This MCP server is designed to work alongside spartan-ng-skills — Claude Code skills that teach AI assistants how to correctly compose Spartan components.

MCP provides the knowledge: what components exist, their APIs, source code. Skills provide the wisdom: how to use them correctly, composition rules, styling conventions.

Install skills into any project:

# Via MCP tool
spartan_install_skills(cwd="/path/to/your-angular-project")

# Or manually
cp -r /path/to/spartan-ng-skills/.claude /path/to/your-angular-project/

The skills include 6 rule files with correct/incorrect Angular code pairs covering:

• Brain vs Helm selection and hostDirectives
• Component composition (Dialog, Card, Tabs, forms)
• Styling with hlm(), classes(), CVA variants, semantic tokens
• Angular Reactive Forms with HlmField system
• Icon patterns with ng-icon
• Angular directives: signals, @if/@for, inject(), OnPush

Configuration

All settings are passed via the env block in your MCP configuration file (.mcp.json, .cursor/mcp.json, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spartan-ng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "spartan-ng-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_...",
        "SPARTAN_CACHE_TTL_HOURS": "48"
      }
    }
  }
}

Available Variables

| Variable | Default | Description | | -------------------------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | | GITHUB_TOKEN | — | GitHub PAT for 5000 req/hr (60/hr without). No scopes required. | | SPARTAN_CACHE_TTL_HOURS | 24 | File cache TTL in hours | | SPARTAN_CACHE_TTL_MS | 300000 | In-memory cache TTL in ms (5 min) | | SPARTAN_FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS | 15000 | HTTP fetch timeout in ms |

Updating the Registry

When Spartan releases new components:

# Regenerate from live Analog API
npm run generate-registry

# Rebuild
npm run build

Or at runtime without rebuilding:

spartan_registry_refresh(force=true)

Development

npm run dev          # TypeScript watch mode
npm run typecheck    # Type-check without emitting
npm run build        # Compile to dist/
npm test             # Run tests
npm run lint         # ESLint

License

MIT