My First MCP Server: Community Toolkit 🛠️

A beginner-friendly Model Context Protocol server built by a DevRel person learning MCP from scratch. If I can build this, you can too.

What it does

Gives Claude (or any MCP client) three tools every community builder needs:

Tool	What it does
days_until_event	Countdown to your next meetup
meetup_announcement	Generates a ready-to-post Markdown announcement
thank_you_note	Drafts contributor appreciation notes

Quick start (5 minutes)

1. Install

pip install "mcp[cli]"

2. Test it with the MCP Inspector

mcp dev server.py

This opens a browser UI where you can call each tool and see the responses — no AI client needed yet.

3. Connect to Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "community-toolkit": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/full/path/to/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop, then try: "How many days until my meetup on 2026-09-15?"

What I learned building this

• MCP is genuinely "USB-C for AI" — I wrote plain Python functions and the protocol handled everything else.
• The @mcp.tool() decorator + a good docstring is all the AI needs to know when to use your tool.
• The MCP Inspector (mcp dev) is the fastest feedback loop for beginners.

Next steps

• Add a tool that pulls real data (e.g., Meetup/Luma API)
• Try resources and prompts, not just tools

Built as part of my AAIF Ambassador journey. Blog post: coming soon.