myhotlunchbox-mcp
MCP server for My Hot Lunchbox — read the school lunch calendar, manage students, place and change orders, and track deliveries and payments on a parent account.
Developed and maintained by AI (Claude Code). Use at your own discretion.
Install
npx myhotlunchbox-mcp
Or as a Claude Code plugin:
/plugin marketplace add chrischall/myhotlunchbox-mcp
/plugin install myhotlunchbox-mcp
Configure
MYHOTLUNCHBOX_USERNAME=you@example.com
MYHOTLUNCHBOX_PASSWORD=…
That is the whole setup. The server performs a real server-side sign-in against
ordernow.myhotlunchbox.com (OAuth2 password grant) and renews the session with
the refresh token it receives — no browser extension, no signed-in tab, no
captured cookie. Nothing is written to disk.
MYHOTLUNCHBOX_BASE_URL overrides the app origin if it ever moves. It must be https:// (plain http:// is accepted only for localhost), and the token cache is bound to it, so changing it signs in again.
The server boots without credentials so a host's install-time tools/list probe
still works; the configuration error surfaces on the first tool call.
Tools
35 tools, all prefixed mhlb_. All 20 read tools are verified live against a real parent account (node scripts/verify-reads.mjs); the 14 write tools are not — see below.
The read claim carries a date because it can go stale with no tool file
touched: an SDK or zod major re-plumbs every read path underneath it. Last
re-run 2026-09-19 on 1.0.0 — the tree after the MCP SDK v2 migration and the
forced zod 4.6.2 bump — 20/20 green.
Account — mhlb_whoami, mhlb_session_reset
Health — mhlb_healthcheck (is this connector working? reports whether the credential resolved, whether My Hot Lunchbox accepted it, and what to fix — unlike mhlb_whoami, which throws instead of answering)
Students — mhlb_list_students, mhlb_get_student_form,
mhlb_new_student_form, mhlb_create_student, mhlb_update_student,
mhlb_delete_student
Calendar — mhlb_get_calendar, mhlb_get_day
Ordering — mhlb_get_cart, mhlb_get_cart_tabs, mhlb_get_menu,
mhlb_get_order_form, mhlb_get_order, mhlb_create_order,
mhlb_update_order, mhlb_delete_order
Billing — mhlb_list_transactions, mhlb_get_transaction,
mhlb_list_subscriptions, mhlb_get_subscription_settings,
mhlb_set_subscription_enabled, mhlb_unsubscribe_order,
mhlb_list_gift_cards, mhlb_apply_gift_card, mhlb_get_coupon,
mhlb_apply_coupon, mhlb_remove_coupon. mhlb_list_gift_cards masks each code to its
last 4 characters (a code is redeemable money); pass revealCodes: true for
the full code.
Checkout — mhlb_init_checkout, mhlb_checkout
Reports — mhlb_print_calendar, mhlb_print_orders,
mhlb_print_transaction. These return real PDFs; each writes the file and
returns its path, or the bytes inline with inline: true. Set
MYHOTLUNCHBOX_OUTPUT_DIR (the "Report folder" setting in the .mcpb) to
choose where they land; it defaults to reports/ under MCP_DATA_DIR when the
host sets one, else ~/Downloads. Existing files are never overwritten.
Confirmations
Every mutating tool asks you to confirm before it sends anything. On a client
that can show a confirmation prompt (Claude Code) you get the prompt, with the
exact request the tool would send. On a client that cannot (claude.ai, Claude
Desktop), the first call makes no network call: it returns a preview of
exactly what it would send plus a confirmToken, and only a repeat call with
the same arguments and that token goes through. A token is single-use, and
changing any argument between the two calls is refused (DRAFT_CHANGED).
| variable | default | |
|---|---|---|
MCP_CONFIRM_MODE | ask-user | What a write does on a client that cannot show a confirmation prompt (claude.ai, Claude Desktop). ask-user: two steps — the first call does nothing and returns a preview plus a token, and the model must get your approval in chat before calling again with it. auto: the same two steps, but the model may use the token after reviewing the preview itself. refuse: writes are refused on such clients. A client that can show prompts (Claude Code) always gets the real prompt, unless MCP_CONFIRM_ELICITATION=off. An unrecognised value is treated as refuse. |
MCP_CONFIRM_ELICITATION | on | off never sends a confirmation prompt, so every client gets the MCP_CONFIRM_MODE path. Set it for a client that declares it can show prompts but never does (the gated call hangs — opencode 2.0.x). Any other value stays on, with a stderr warning. |
MCP_CONFIRM_TTL_SECONDS | 600 | How long a token stays valid. |
MCP_CONFIRM_SECRET | random per process | Signing key; set it only if tokens must survive a server restart. |
mhlb_checkout charges a real payment method. The server prices the charge from
orderIds, so nothing client-side can bind the amount — there is no total in the
request to check against. expectedTotal is therefore attribution, not a
guard: you state what you expected, and it is shown in the confirmation
preview (and bound into its token) and returned in the result so an unexpected charge is traceable to the call that made it. What
the tool does refuse outright is paying a non-zero total with no orderIds.
Writes: shapes captured, acceptance unverified
npm run capture:writes runs every mutating tool against a local proxy that
forwards reads to the real service but answers writes itself, so the payloads
are built from genuine server models and nothing happens upstream. It also
proves all 13 send nothing until they are confirmed with a confirmToken.
What that established, and corrected: mhlb_delete_order and
mhlb_unsubscribe_order take {orderId, eventDate, studentId, isRepeated, isSubscribed} — not the order model — and checkout takes
{orderIds, checkoutType, couponCode, giftCardCode, schoolDonations}.
What is still unverified is whether the server accepts these bodies. Shape
is not acceptance; only a real write shows that, and none has been made. Inspect
the confirmation preview before approving it, and re-read afterwards — a 200 is not
proof a write persisted.
Two limits on mhlb_checkout specifically:
- It can only pay with a card already saved on the account. Paying with a new card needs a Stripe token minted by Stripe.js in a browser, which no server-side client can produce.
- It generates an idempotency key (unless you pass one) and returns it with the
result and with any error. If a checkout fails ambiguously, retry with that
same
idempotencyKeyrather than a fresh call — that is what stops a retry becoming a second charge. A key you pass yourself must be the same on both confirmation calls.
Ordering is read-modify-write
There is no "add item X" call. Fetch the model, edit it, send it back whole:
mhlb_get_menu— what is orderable for a student on a datemhlb_get_order_form— the order model to fill in (itsdatafield)mhlb_create_order— send thatdataback (and confirm the preview)mhlb_init_checkout→mhlb_checkout— price, then pay
Fields omitted from the payload are cleared, not preserved.
Reads that carry school-, vendor- or menu-authored text (calendar, menus, cart,
orders, students, transactions, subscriptions, coupon) return
{"untrusted_content":true,"note":…,"data":…}: the payload sits under data,
and the note tells the model to treat that text as data, never as instructions.
Shell skill
skills/myhotlunchbox covers the same account from a shell with curl — no MCP
process needed. Useful in scripts, or on a machine where this server is not
installed.
Notes
/deliveryInfo/*and/calendar/viewMatchedVendorslook parent-facing in the compiled client but return403for a parent account — they belong to the school/vendor dashboards. No tool wraps them.- Only the parent role is wired. The same API also serves school-admin and
vendor roles; those endpoints return
403, which the client reports as a role mismatch rather than a broken session. docs/MYHOTLUNCHBOX-API.mdrecords how the API was mapped and exactly what is verified.docs/api-surface.txtis the full 359-endpoint extraction.
Licence
MIT