Presscart MCP

The official Model Context Protocol server for Presscart, a marketplace for disclosed paid editorial placements across 1,700+ publications. It lets AI assistants and agents browse the outlet catalog, manage campaigns and orders, and track article status through the Presscart API.

Hosted endpoint: https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp — see Client Setup for connecting from Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients. A Presscart account is required.

Supports:

• hosted Streamable HTTP mode

Hosted HTTP mode supports two auth models:

• MCP OAuth mode: Supabase/Auth issues the OAuth token, and clients connect to /mcp with Authorization: Bearer <oauth_access_token>.
• Legacy direct-token mode: the caller provides a Presscart API token via X-Presscart-API-Token, and the server uses that token as the upstream Presscart credential.

Environment

Required:

export PRESSCART_API_URL="http://api.presscart.com/"

Optional app link settings:

export PRESSCART_APP_URL="https://app.presscart.com"

Optional hosted mode settings:

export MCP_HOST="0.0.0.0"
export MCP_PORT="8787"
export MCP_SERVER_URL="https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp"
export MCP_SESSION_IDLE_TTL_MS="43200000"

Optional host/origin overrides for reverse proxies or multiple domains:

export MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS="mcp.presscart.com"
export MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS="https://mcp.presscart.com,https://claude.ai,https://claude.com"

When MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS is not set, hosted mode allows the configured MCP server origin plus Claude's remote connector origins.

Optional OAuth settings:

export MCP_OAUTH_ENABLED="true"
export MCP_OAUTH_ISSUER_URL="https://<project-ref>.supabase.co/auth/v1"
export MCP_OAUTH_AUDIENCE="https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp"
export MCP_OAUTH_TRANSLATOR_ENABLED="false"
export MCP_OAUTH_LEGACY_AUDIENCE="https://mcp.presscart.com"
export MCP_OAUTH_UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT_MS="10000"

Notes:

• PRESSCART_API_URL must point at the app API base that exposes /teams/* routes, not a public-api-only base.
• PRESSCART_APP_URL controls direct application links returned by tools such as list_publisher_articles. Set it per environment so staging MCP links open staging.
• Tools that create orders/campaigns or read profile orders need an explicit profile_id. If the profile is unknown, call list_teams, then list_profiles.
• In MCP OAuth mode, the app's Supabase OAuth Server handles authorization and consent. This MCP runtime validates the issued access token against Supabase JWKS and delegated permissions.
• MCP_OAUTH_TRANSLATOR_ENABLED defaults to false. When enabled, the MCP origin publishes a standards-based OAuth facade while Supabase remains responsible for clients, codes, tokens, rotation, signing, and consent.
• MCP_OAUTH_ISSUER_URL must use HTTPS. Loopback HTTP issuers are accepted only for local development.
• MCP_OAUTH_LEGACY_AUDIENCE is an optional verifier-only migration value and must equal the configured MCP server origin (for example, https://mcp.presscart.com). It cannot duplicate the canonical /mcp resource or name another service, and it never changes the protected resource advertised to clients.
• MCP clients store their own refresh tokens, initiate refresh automatically, and replace rotated refresh and access tokens. This server handles the refresh request statelessly and does not store refresh tokens.
• The translator changes only MCP OAuth. It does not change ordinary Presscart browser or app sessions, and disabling MCP OAuth still preserves legacy direct-token mode.
• In legacy direct-token mode, send X-Presscart-API-Token: <presscart_api_token> on initialize and later requests that need to confirm the active session credential.

Install

cd presscart-mcp
npm install

Run

Development:

npm run dev:http

Build and run:

npm run build
npm start

Build and run hosted HTTP:

npm run build
npm run start:http

Release

Releases are automated by semantic-release from Conventional Commits.

• fix: creates a patch release.
• feat: creates a minor release.
• ! or BREAKING CHANGE: creates a major release.
• docs:, test:, chore:, and other non-release commits do not publish a new version by default.

The Release workflow runs on pushes to main and staging. It runs check, test, and build, then semantic-release creates the release tag and publishes the GitHub release.

• main publishes stable releases and commits generated release files: CHANGELOG.md, package.json, package-lock.json, and src/version.ts.
• staging publishes release candidates with the rc prerelease channel, but does not commit generated release files. This keeps staging-to-main promotion merges from conflicting on prerelease metadata.

You can dry-run the release locally:

npm run release:dry-run
npm run release:staging:dry-run

If the repository has no existing release tag yet, create the baseline tag before the first semantic-release run so the next release continues from the current version:

git tag v0.2.0
git push origin v0.2.0

Tools

• get_user
• list_teams
• get_team
• list_profiles
• upload_files
• list_outlets
• get_outlet
• create_outlet
• update_outlet
• list_outlet_channels
• create_outlet_channel
• update_outlet_channel
• delete_outlet_channel
• list_product_types
• list_product_listings
• list_countries
• list_states
• list_cities
• get_product_listing
• list_products
• get_product
• create_product
• update_product
• create_order
• get_order
• list_order_items
• list_profile_orders
• create_campaign
• list_campaigns
• get_campaign
• update_campaign
• list_campaign_articles
• list_publisher_articles
• add_order_items_to_campaign
• get_campaign_article_status
• upload_campaign_questionnaire
• upload_article
• replace_article_file
• submit_article
• request_article_writing

Hosted deployment shape

MCP OAuth mode

Enable OAuth:

PRESSCART_API_URL=http://api.presscart.com/
MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0
MCP_PORT=8787
MCP_SERVER_URL=https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp
MCP_SESSION_IDLE_TTL_MS=43200000
MCP_OAUTH_ENABLED=true
MCP_OAUTH_ISSUER_URL=https://<project-ref>.supabase.co/auth/v1
MCP_OAUTH_AUDIENCE=https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp
MCP_OAUTH_TRANSLATOR_ENABLED=false
MCP_OAUTH_LEGACY_AUDIENCE=https://mcp.presscart.com
MCP_OAUTH_UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT_MS=10000

The canonical resource and JWT audience must match MCP_SERVER_URL, allowing only a trailing-slash difference. Both public OAuth URLs and the upstream issuer must use HTTPS except for loopback-only local development. MCP_OAUTH_LEGACY_AUDIENCE is needed only during the migration window, must match the MCP server origin exactly, and should otherwise be unset.

With the translator disabled, the server exposes direct-Supabase protected-resource metadata at:

• /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource
• /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp

With the translator enabled, those routes advertise https://mcp.presscart.com as the authorization server, and the server also exposes:

• /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
• /oauth/authorize
• /oauth/register
• /oauth/token

The facade accepts the standard authorization-code and refresh-token flows and proxies only to the configured Supabase issuer. It does not derive upstream targets from request hosts, forwarded headers, query parameters, or client-supplied URLs.

The facade does not expose or advertise an RFC token-revocation endpoint. Revocation stays in the existing Presscart app/admin flow: revoking the Presscart OAuth grant makes the next refresh fail. An access token that was already issued is not actively revoked by this MCP verifier and can remain cryptographically valid until its normal expiry. After it expires, the client cannot obtain a replacement, access ends, and the user must reauthorize.

Hosted MCP clients should connect to https://mcp.presscart.com/mcp and use normal MCP OAuth discovery. After the browser flow completes, they send Authorization: Bearer <oauth_access_token> to /mcp. Clients own refresh-token storage, automatically initiate refresh, and persist each rotated refresh token returned by Supabase through the facade.

ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Codex consume the same MCP and OAuth standards. The server has no vendor-specific authentication branches. Labels and prompts such as Connect or Authenticate are controlled by each client platform, not by this server.

OAuth rollout and rollback

Deploy the audience migration and translator in this order: