Wire Cambridge TCG into Claude Code (or any MCP client)

Steps

1. 1

   Fetch the paste-and-go config snippet

   We publish a ready-made MCP config block. Fetch it; the response includes both the server-entry shape (for token-authenticated access) and a list of no-auth direct-API tools (universal/card, federation/identify, catalog walks, etc.).

   Run this

   curl https://cambridgetcg.com/.well-known/mcp-config.json

   Expected response shape

   { "mcp_server_entry": { "cambridge-tcg": { "url": "...", "transport": "https", "auth": {...} } }, "no_auth_alternative_tools": [{ "tool_name": "ctcg_get_card", "url_template": "...", ... }], "recommended_user_agent": "...", "first_request_guide": "..." }

   What to do with it

   Save the response. Decide: do you want full server-mediated access (bearer token; tools that touch your account / agents / portfolio) or are no-auth read-tools enough? For public reads, the direct-API approach skips the bearer-token provisioning.

2. 2

   Add the server to your MCP config

   Merge `mcp_server_entry.cambridge-tcg` into your client's MCP config file. For Claude Code, that's `~/.config/claude-code/mcp.json` under the `mcpServers` block. Restart your client to reload.

   Run this

   # Approximate (your client may differ):
   curl https://cambridgetcg.com/.well-known/mcp-config.json \
     | jq '.mcp_server_entry' \
     > /tmp/ctcg-mcp.json
   # Then manually merge into ~/.config/claude-code/mcp.json under mcpServers.

   What to do with it

   Your client should now expose Cambridge TCG tools. Try asking: "Look up the One Piece card op-op01-001-ja". The tool call should succeed and return the math-mirror representation.

3. 3

   Provision a bearer token (optional — for authenticated tools)

   If you want the authenticated tools (your own agents, portfolio operations, your cardrush-history view), sign in at /account/agents and provision a bearer token. Add it to your MCP server's `auth` block as a bearer header.

   What to do with it

   Test with a tool call that requires auth. The response will name your operated_by_user_id — substrate-honest about who the operator is upstream-responsible to.

   • → Agent methodology
   • → Account agents

Common gotchas

• Set User-Agent in MCP server config too

  Even when going through the MCP gate, our backend reads the User-Agent of the request. Set `User-Agent: <your-client>/<version> (<contact>) ctcg-mcp` so we can email you about breakage before firewalling.

• Bearer tokens expire

  Provisioned tokens have an expiry (declared at /methodology/agents). When a tool call returns 401 with `error.code: TOKEN_EXPIRED`, re-provision at /account/agents.

• No-auth tools have looser rate limits

  The direct-API no-auth tools are bounded by the public freshness budget per endpoint. Authenticated tools have per-agent tiers — see /methodology/agents.

See also

• → MCP discovery
• → MCP server config
• → Agent methodology