PonyMail MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides access to the Apache PonyMail mailing list archive API.

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | list_lists | Get an overview of all available mailing lists and message counts | | search_list | Search/browse a mailing list with filters (date, sender, subject, body, query) | | get_email | Fetch a specific email by ID with full body and attachments | | get_thread | Fetch the root message of a thread by thread ID | | get_mbox | Download mbox-formatted archive data for bulk export | | login | Authenticate via ASF OAuth to access private mailing lists | | logout | Clear cached session cookie | | auth_status | Check current authentication status |

Setup

cd /Users/rcbowen/devel/ponymail-mcp
npm install

Configure in Amazon Quick

1. Open Settings → Capabilities → MCP Servers
2. Click Add MCP / Skill → Local (stdio)
3. Fill in:
   • Name: ponymail
   • Command: node
   • Args: /Users/rcbowen/devel/ponymail-mcp/index.js
4. Click Save

Environment Variables

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | PONYMAIL_BASE_URL | https://lists.apache.org | Base URL of the PonyMail instance | | PONYMAIL_SESSION_COOKIE | (none) | Manual session cookie override (skips OAuth flow) |

Authentication (Private Lists)

Public lists work without authentication. For private/restricted lists, you have two options:

Option 1: Automated OAuth (Recommended)

Use the login tool from within Amazon Quick. It will:

1. Open a local helper page at http://localhost:39817
2. The page links to PonyMail's login page — log in with your ASF LDAP credentials
3. After logging in, grab the session cookie (see below) and paste it into the form
4. The server validates the cookie and caches it to ~/.ponymail-mcp/session.json

Finding the HttpOnly cookie: The ponymail cookie is HttpOnly, so document.cookie and the Application tab won't show it. To find it:

1. On lists.apache.org (while logged in), open DevTools (Cmd+Option+I / F12)
2. Go to the Network tab and reload the page
3. Click on any request (e.g., the page itself, or any api/ call)
4. In Headers → Request Headers → find the Cookie: line
5. Copy the ponymail=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx part

Option 2: Manual Cookie

1. Log into https://lists.apache.org in your browser
2. Open DevTools → Application → Cookies → copy the session cookie
3. Set the environment variable:

   PONYMAIL_SESSION_COOKIE="ponymail=abc123..."
   

4. Add it to your MCP server config's environment variables

Sessions expire after ~20 hours. Use auth_status to check, logout to clear.

Usage Examples

Once connected, you can ask things like:

• "Search the dev@iceberg.apache.org list for messages about partition spec in the last 30 days"
• "Show me the available mailing lists"
• "Fetch email with ID xyz..."
• "Get the mbox archive for dev@httpd.apache.org for 2024-03"