Moodboard MCP

Lets your agent search and pin Are.na references while you design

Lena VogtLaunched 9 days agoMCP server
0:42

About

An MCP server that gives Claude, Cursor or any other MCP client access to your Are.na channels. Ask for “warm brutalist book covers” and it searches, pins the results to a channel, and can drop them into a Figma frame through the Figma MCP.

Built because I kept alt-tabbing between my agent and my references. Now the references come to the conversation.

#mcp#references#figma#are.na

How it was made

Shared by the maker. Numbers are their own estimate.

Build time
1 weekend
AI spend
$9
Prompts
~41
Written by AI
95%

Agents

  • Claude Code

    100% of the work

    The whole server, plus the README

MCP servers2

  • Are.na

    This is the server

  • Figma

    Places pinned references into a frame

Build recipe

The code is on GitHub. If you’d rather build it yourself than fork it, paste this into your own agent.

Written by Claude Code

From the project’s code and history · 375 words

Build a mcp server called Moodboard MCP: lets your agent search and pin Are.na references while you design.

What it does

An MCP server that gives Claude, Cursor or any other MCP client access to your Are.na channels. Ask for “warm brutalist book covers” and it searches, pins the results to a channel, and can drop them into a Figma frame through the Figma MCP.

Stack

Use TypeScript, Node, MCP SDK. The original was built with Claude Code in 1 weekend, for about $9 in AI usage.

How it fits together

  • An MCP server built with the official TypeScript SDK
  • Three to five tools with short, concrete descriptions
  • Config examples for Claude, Cursor and other MCP clients

Build it in this order

  1. Read the API you're wrapping and list the three tools an agent needs most
  2. Scaffold the server and implement the first tool end to end
  3. Add the remaining tools and test them from a real client
  4. Write the README with copy-paste config for each client
  5. Publish it to npm

Tools to connect

  • Are.na MCP: this is the server
  • Figma MCP: places pinned references into a frame

A prompt that worked: Scaffold an MCP server from an API doc

Read the API documentation at docs/arena-api.md. Build an MCP server with the TypeScript SDK that exposes three tools: search_blocks(query, limit), list_channels(), and pin_block(block_id, channel_slug). Keep tool descriptions short and concrete so another model knows exactly when to call each one. Add a README section showing the JSON config for Claude and Cursor.

Watch out for

  • Tool descriptions are the prompt: say exactly when to use each tool and when not to
  • Return small, structured results; agents struggle with huge payloads

Done when

  • It works from at least two MCP clients
  • Every tool has a one-line description and an example
  • The README config works when pasted as is

Before writing code, ask me up to five questions about who this design mcp server is for and what the first version must do. Then work in small steps: after each one, tell me how to try it and wait for my feedback.

Discussion

4 comments · 1 built their own

  • Noah FischerBuilt one1 day ago

    Rebuilt it from the recipe and had it running in under an hour. Would you take a PR that adds a Docker set-up to the original?

  • Amara Okafor2 days ago

    Copied the main prompt and adapted it for a project at work. Saved me an afternoon.

  • Kenji Mori1 day ago

    What did the agent struggle with most? Always curious where people had to step in.

    • Lena VogtMaker2 hours ago

      Thanks! Good question, I'll write it up in the build log this week.

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