Glazecalc vs Mellos Mapping
A side-by-side look at the Glazecalc and Mellos Mapping MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Glazecalc for developer tools work over a hosted endpoint; choose Mellos Mapping for developer tools as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
Which MCP server should you choose?
Choose Glazecalc when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Developer Tools domain.
- You prefer a remote HTTP/SSE transport.
- You want tools like
search_materials, get_material, analyze_recipe.
Choose Mellos Mapping when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Developer Tools domain.
- You prefer a local stdio subprocess transport.
- You want tools like
mmap_declare, mmap_update, mmap_read.
Feature & specification comparison
Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Developer Tools | Developer Tools |
| Quality signal | 72/100 · Great | 67/100 · Great |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Remote HTTP/SSE | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | Not declared | Not declared |
| Pricing | Not declared | Not declared |
| Required env vars | None listed | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 0 | 115 |
| Directory activity | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 2 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 33 | 8 |
| Full listing | View Glazecalc | View Mellos Mapping |
Tools & capabilities
Glazecalc tools 33
search_materialsFinds ceramic raw materials (feldspars, clays, frits, fluxes) and, if asked, colorants in Glazecalc's library by name, alias or maker. Use it to find the exact name the other tools take.get_materialOne material from Glazecalc's library: its oxides, loss on ignition, whether it is discontinued and what replaces it, where it is sold, hazards and the data sheet it comes from.analyze_recipeWorks out a glaze recipe's unity (Seger) formula, oxide groups, silica to alumina ratio, fired analysis, loss on ignition and calculated thermal expansion, as the Glazecalc app does. stull says where the recipe sits on Stull's chart (1912, as the recipe page draws it): silica and alumina in moles, the region (unfused, matte, semi-matte, bright or underfired) and whether it falls in the crazed area; a guide to the surface, not a promise.check_limitsChecks a glaze recipe for what is past a recommended limit for its firing (too much boron or alkali, too little alumina, too little or too much clay, rising expansion...) and says what the fired glaze will likely do, as the Glazecalc app does. A cone is checked in the band the recipe page gives it (low cone 06-02, mid 1-7, high 8-11); from cone 12 up (band 'top') no published limits reach, so the band's limits are not checked and limitsNote says so. With a firing, coneFit says whether the chemistry looks like that firing's, by Katz's boron rule and Hesselberth & Roy's silica and alumina whatever limit set is chosen: verdict 'cooler' or 'hotter' only when boron and silica or alumina agree on another band; 'fits' (nothing points away, not a pass); 'skipped' where the published figures do not reach (lead, lithium, much soda and potash or zinc, raku, cones 01 to 3, cooler than cone 06 or hotter than cone 10...). Cone 6 against cone 10 is told apart only roughly (strength 'soft'). stull says where the recipe sits on Stull's chart, as analyze_recipe gives it. These are cautions and guides from published figures, not a test and not a guarantee of food safety.convert_cone_temperatureConverts between a pyrometric cone and its temperature, and between °C and °F. Orton cones run 022 to 42: Glazecalc's figure, from 022 to 15, is Orton's older chart for large cones at 150 °C an hour, and Orton's current figures (self-supporting cones at 15, 60 and 150 °C an hour, large cones at 60 and 150, cone 022 to 14) come beside it; Orton publishes no figure above cone 14, so cones from 16 up have none. SK cones (JIS R 8101, SK 022 to SK 20) by the standard's nominal figures. Give a cone, or a temperature to find the nearest cones.suggest_substitutesFinds the discontinued or scarce materials in a recipe and the modern ones that replace them, then suggests amounts that keep the unity formula as near as the materials allow, as the Glazecalc app does. report.closeness says how near the new unity formula comes to the old, oxide by oxide, as match_from_materials does. Test any suggestion before using it.match_from_materialsRemakes a glaze recipe from only the materials listed in "have", keeping its unity formula as near as they allow, as Match with what I have does in the Glazecalc app. report.closeness says how near the new unity formula comes to the old, oxide by oxide: close (within 0.02, or 5% of a large amount such as silica's), off, or far (more than three times that), with a verdict (close, fair or poor) and a summary. report.miss and report.best are the solver's own scores, for comparing runs. Raw clay is held to 20% of the batch where that costs the match little (report.capped and allowMore say more). Test any suggestion before using it.solve_targetMakes a glaze recipe, in percent, from the materials given whose unity formula comes as near a target as they allow (Solve for a target in the Glazecalc app). The target is a unity formula (moles; the fluxes are scaled to add up to 1) or an oxide analysis (percent by weight of the fired glaze), with potash and soda apart. Give the materials by their library names, or onHand for the materials on the person’s shelf (with a token or connected app that may read it). closeness says how near each oxide comes: close (within 0.02, or 5% of a large amount such as silica’s), off, or far (more than three times that), with a verdict (close, fair or poor) and a summary; unreachable names the target’s oxides nothing given supplies. Raw clay is held to 20% of the batch where that costs the match little (capped and allowMore say more). Test any recipe before using it.blend_recipesWorks out the test tiles of a line blend between recipes a and b (2 to 11 steps), or of a triaxial blend when c is given too (2 to 6 rows, up to 21 tiles), as the Blends page of the Glazecalc app does. Each tile is a mix of the corner recipes, each taken as a percent of its base: its shares, its recipe in percent, its key unity formula figures (silica, alumina, boron, the fluxes), silica to alumina, calculated expansion, its place on the Stull chart (stull), the names of the limit cautions it has, and, with a firing, whether its chemistry fits that firing (coneFit verdict). With two recipes and steps 2 it compares them oxide by oxide (differences). Give base materials only, no colorants. This is a calculation from published figures, not a test result: the tiles, fired, decide, and the cautions are guides, not a guarantee of food safety.vary_materialShows what one material does to a glaze, by putting more and more of it into a base recipe (an ingredient blend or progression test: whiting 0 to 20, say, in 2 to 11 tiles). With mode "add" (the default) it goes on top of the base, so the recipe grows; with mode "replace" the same amount comes out of another material of the base (`instead`), so the total stays the same. Each tile has its amount of the material, its recipe in percent, its key unity formula figures (silica, alumina, boron, the fluxes), silica to alumina, calculated expansion, its place on Stull's chart (stull: region, crazed), the names of the limit cautions it has, and, with a firing, whether its chemistry fits that firing (coneFit verdict). trend sums up what moves from the first tile to the last, and which Stull regions the tiles cross. Give base materials only, no colorants. This is a calculation from published figures, not a test result: the tiles, fired, decide, and the cautions are guides, not a guarantee of food safety.compare_recipesCompares two glaze recipes side by side: for each, its recipe in percent, key unity formula figures, silica to alumina, calculated expansion, place on Stull's chart (stull), the names of the limit cautions it has and, with a firing, whether its chemistry fits that firing (coneFit verdict); then what changes from A to B oxide by oxide (differences), and which materials are in A only, in B only, or in both, with their percents. It is the same comparison blend_recipes makes with two recipes and two steps, under a name that is easy to find. Give base materials only, no colorants. This is a calculation from published figures, not a test result: fire both, and the tiles decide.search_guidesSearches Glazecalc's plain-language guides for potters (glazing from first principles, making a glaze, safe mixing, safety at home with children and pets, firing a kiln, and a companion to John Britt's free glaze course, in English only) in the language asked for, or in English where that language has no match. Returns each matching section's title, anchor, a short excerpt, its address on the website and its resource URI, which resources/read returns in full. Use it for glaze defects, safety, firing and terms, and cite the address.- +21 more on the listing page
Mellos Mapping tools 8
mmap_declareGrow the Mellos map: set the title and diagram kind, add layer bands, lanes and groups (labeled subsystems within ONE band — declare them when a single band grows crowded, roughly five or more nodes in that band; a group must be a strict subset of its band, and a map spread thin across many bands needs none), add nodes, add dependency edges. Declare the missing design after reading existing pages with mmap_read; reuse verified nodes. Edges must point strictly downward (a node may only use nodes on lower layers); the batch is all-or-nothing. Title and kind can also be changed with mmap_update; this legacy form remains supported. Revising what already exists (moving, renaming, relabeling, clearing) is mmap_update.mmap_updateThe revision tool, all-or-nothing. Record progress on nodes: in-progress when starting a node (the pane spins), done with evidence when its verification passes, regressed with evidence when a done node breaks. Revise what the ghost design got wrong: move a node to another band, join or leave a group or lane, rename a band (or re-rank it, which reorders the whole map), relabel a group or a lane. Every clearable field takes null to empty it — that is how a field is cleared, never an empty string. Bands, groups and lanes are applied before the node updates, and within one node update `layer` moves the node before its other fields. The map is a ledger: report honestly, it never blocks you.mmap_readRead existing pages before creating a map. Returns structured IDs, revisions and bounded results. pages lists summaries; map reads page metadata/context; nodes/edges/layers/groups/lanes read editable records; neighborhood reads related nodes; changes compares saved source hashes with local files. New conversations and compacted context should resume the existing effort. mmap_view remains the picture.mmap_batchAtomically combine additions, updates and removals on ONE page. Checks the final graph, so a coordinated move or edge replacement needs no intermediate saves. Read IDs and revision with mmap_read first. Cross-page deletion is excluded.mmap_removeRemove edges, nodes, groups and empty layer bands (in that order, all-or-nothing). Removing a node also removes every edge touching it; removing a group merely ungroups its members. Use when the ghost design turns out wrong — the map is a hypothesis, revising it is honest work. `pages` is the other scale: it DELETES whole page files, so a finished effort can be cleaned up instead of accumulating tabs forever. A bare `{pages: ["slug"]}` with no other field is the normal form; combined with map edits, the edits are applied first and the pages are deleted after. The deletion is permanent and cannot be undone, so delete only pages whose effort is over — and only ever with the user behind it. An unknown slug is refused with the project's real page list (naming a page that does not exist is a typo, not a request). The default page has no slug and is not deletable here. A node elsewhere still pointing at a deleted page with `submap` stays legal — a submap reference has no existence invariant — but it has nowhere to dive until the page comes back.mmap_setupGet or set the mapping policy — WHEN the assistant opens a Mellos map. Call with no arguments to read it: the reply names the policy chosen for the USER (every project), the one this PROJECT overrides it with if any, and which of them is in effect. If it reports "not set", ask the USER to choose (never pick for them): always = map every structured task — workflows, designs, architecture, technical dependencies; complex = map only medium or complex tasks — several modules, a new subsystem, roughly an hour or more; on-request = map only when the user explicitly asks. Then call again with their choice to persist it. It defaults to user scope, which is the normal one — the question is about how someone works, so it is asked once ever, not once per repository. Pass scope: "project" only when the user wants THIS project to differ from that habit. The policy guides you; it never blocks the tools, and an explicit user request for a map always wins.mmap_viewRender the current Mellos map as monochrome text — the same picture the split-pane watcher shows live. Use it to check the map state or to show it inline in conversation. Every response ends with a `pages:` line naming the pages this project actually has and which one you are looking at, so this is also how you discover whether a map exists at all and under which slugs — never probe the files.mmap_openFor automatic display beside the current ChatGPT desktop conversation in Codex mode, use surface: "web-terminal", then call open_in_codex with the returned browser hostOpen object. No paste or Computer Use is needed. For the native host terminal, use surface: "codex-terminal": prepare absolute watcher commands for the current project, then ask the host to open its right terminal. This does not launch the watcher or type into that terminal. Agent exec PTYs cannot be attached using their numeric session ids. For a document panel, use surface: "markdown": generate MD + SVG files, enable automatic preview updates after successful map writes, then use the HOST file-opening tool to display the returned absolute Markdown path on the right of the current conversation. Generated does not mean visible: this server cannot open or observe the desktop side panel. For interactive maps, choose surface: "web": start or reuse a project-local web viewer and pass the returned URL to the host browser-opening tool. Markdown and terminal remain available. The default surface is "terminal", preserving the terminal workflow. Put the live map on the user's screen: a terminal pane beside this conversation that redraws on every write. Call it whenever a result says `pane: CLOSED` — and do NOT ask permission first, because a user who has set a mapping policy has already said they want to see the map. With a pane already open this RETARGETS it to `page` instead of opening a second one, so it is also how you show the user a particular page when they ask for one. It never closes a pane: taking the map off the screen belongs to the user (the `q` key in the pane, or typing `mmap` in a terminal). The reply says whether a pane actually reported itself in afterwards, not merely that a command was run. Automatic terminal opening supports Windows Terminal, tmux on Linux/macOS, and Pebrel, which splits the conversation's own pane. omp (Oh My Pi) has no side panel of its own: there the routes are this same terminal pane (a Windows Terminal split, or a tmux split on Linux/macOS) and the web viewer, whose URL the session opens with its own browser tool. If opening fails, relay the reason and copyable command; retry only after the environment changes or the user asks.
Ready-to-paste client configs
Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
Glazecalc
{
"mcpServers": {
"glazecalc": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"ng"
]
}
}
}
Mellos Mapping
{
"mcpServers": {
"mellos-mapping": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"mellos-mapping"
]
}
}
}
Frequently asked questions
Glazecalc is categorized under Developer Tools and uses a remote HTTP/SSE transport. Mellos Mapping belongs to Developer Tools and uses a local stdio subprocess. Pick Glazecalc for developer tools work and Mellos Mapping for developer tools.
Copy the mcpServers block from the config section on this page into your client's config (for example claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json), then fully restart the client.
Glazecalc has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. Mellos Mapping has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. If a server needs environment variables such as API keys, define them under the env key in your client's MCP config.
Yes. MCP clients support multiple servers: add glazecalc and mellos-mapping as separate keys in the same mcpServers object, and your assistant will call tools from either one.
On AllMCPs, Glazecalc has a quality signal of 72/100 (Great) with 0 views, 0 installs and 0 GitHub stars. Mellos Mapping has 67/100 (Great) with 2 views, 0 installs and 115 GitHub stars.