Hated WoW MCP

An MCP server for writing World of Warcraft addons. Free and open source.

It gives your AI assistant three things it otherwise guesses at: the in-game Lua API for the client you are targeting, Blizzard's own shipped UI source so it can see how the game itself does something, and the game's art and file data so texture references are real rather than invented.

19 tools. Works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, and anything else that speaks MCP.

☕ Support this project

Hated WoW MCP is free and always will be. If it saves you time, you can buy me a coffee — it genuinely helps keep it maintained through patch cycles.

buymeacoffee.com/rdygaming

Everything here is about code that runs inside the client. There is no Battle.net web API in this server — no armory lookups, no auction house.

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Quick start

Requires Node 20+ and git on your PATH.

git clone https://github.com/RdyGaming/hated-wow-mcp.git
cd hated-wow-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm run sync-all
npm test

Before you run sync-all: open https://wago.tools/ once in your browser and let the page fully load. wago.tools sits behind bot protection, and visiting it first from the same connection lets the atlas download through. Skip this and the atlas step may fail with HTTP 403.

npm run sync-all downloads the game data (a ~44 MB shallow clone of Blizzard's UI source and a ~149 MB listfile). Give it a few minutes on first run. npm test should report 46 passed, 0 failed.

On Windows you can run setup.cmd instead, which does all five steps and prints the exact path you need for the next section.

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Add it to your client

Every client needs the absolute path to dist/index.js. Print it:

node -e "console.log(require('path').resolve('dist/index.js'))"

Claude Code

One command — no file editing:

claude mcp add wow -- node /absolute/path/to/hated-wow-mcp/dist/index.js

Add -s user to make it available in every project instead of just the current one. Verify with claude mcp list.

Claude Desktop

Edit your config file:

OS	Path
Windows	%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows Store install? If that path doesn't exist, look under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude\ instead.

Add the mcpServers block. If the file already has other keys, keep them — merge this in rather than replacing the file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wow": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:\\absolute\\path\\to\\hated-wow-mcp\\dist\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "WOW_DEFAULT_FLAVOR": "mainline"
      }
    }
  }
}

On Windows, backslashes must be doubled in JSON. On macOS/Linux use a normal path like /Users/you/hated-wow-mcp/dist/index.js.

Then fully quit Claude Desktop from the system tray and reopen it — closing the window is not enough, and the config is only read at startup.

Cursor / Cline / Windsurf / other MCP clients

Same JSON block as above. Cursor reads .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json globally. See mcp-config.example.json in this repo.

Verify it worked

Ask your assistant: "Using the WoW MCP, what does C_Item.GetItemInfo return?" You should get a full 18-value signature. Or run the server directly:

npm run list-tools

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Configuration

All settings are optional — see .env.example.

Variable	Purpose
WOW_DEFAULT_FLAVOR	Client to answer for when a tool call doesn't name one: mainline, mists, cata, wrath, tbc, vanilla. Defaults to mainline.
WOW_INSTALL_PATH	Your WoW folder. Auto-detected if unset.
WOW_ADDON_PATH	AddOns folder the file tools read and write. Confines them to that directory.

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What it knows

Data set	Contents	Source
Lua API index	6,335 functions, 1,783 events, 1,676 enums/structures, 6,704 globals (retail; Classic and Classic Era indexed separately)	Blizzard's own generated /api documentation, mirrored at Gethe/wow-ui-source
UI source	4,036 files across 348 Blizzard_* packages — 4,044 inheritable XML templates, 3,488 mixins, 26,859 mixin methods	Same mirror
UI schema	Blizzard's UI.xsd, parsed for element/attribute validation	Same mirror
File index	172,175 interface files including 36,624 icons, mapped to FileDataIDs	wowdev/wow-listfile
Atlas index	17,465 named SetAtlas elements with sizes and coordinates	wago.tools DB2 exports

All of it is synced from public mirrors by scripts in scripts/, so it tracks patches without anyone hand-maintaining a list.

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Tools

API reference

Tool	Purpose
wow_api_search	Find a function with its full argument and return signature
wow_api_event_search	Find an event and its payload arguments, in order
wow_api_type_search	Find an Enum.*, Constants.* or structure table
wow_api_diff	Compare availability across retail / Classic / Classic Era
wow_api_stats	Show which indexes are loaded and when they were synced

Blizzard's UI source

Tool	Purpose
wow_ui_template_search	Find an inheritable XML template, with its inheritance chain
wow_ui_mixin_search	Find a mixin by name or by one of its methods
wow_ui_grep	Regex-search all 4,036 shipped Lua/XML files
wow_ui_read_file	Read a shipped source file in context
wow_ui_list_packages	List the Blizzard_* packages

Authoring

Tool	Purpose
wow_lua_lint	Removed/moved APIs, unknown events, taint, performance traps
wow_xml_validate	Validate interface XML against Blizzard's UI.xsd
wow_toc_validate	Validate a .toc: interface version, flavor suffix, file list
wow_addon_scaffold	Generate a working addon skeleton
wow_install_info	Report local installs and installed addons

Game data and art

Tool	Purpose
wow_file_search	Path ↔ FileDataID, both directions
wow_icon_search	Find an icon and get both usable reference forms
wow_atlas_search	Find a SetAtlas element with size and coordinates
wow_data_status	Show which game data sets are synced

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Why the linter is worth running

It is built on the per-flavor index rather than a hand-written deprecation list, so it knows things that are true for the client you are targeting:

$ wow_lua_lint --flavor mainline
local n = GetContainerNumSlots(0)

  1:9  warning  api/moved-to-namespace
      "GetContainerNumSlots" has moved into a namespace in Retail (Midnight)…
      -> C_Container.GetContainerNumSlots

The same code is clean on Classic, because there the global still exists. That distinction is derived from Blizzard's data, not asserted by hand.

It also catches the taint mistakes that produce "Interface action failed because of an AddOn" — calling protected functions, reassigning Blizzard globals, touching secure frames during combat lockdown.

Measured false-positive rate, checked by running both validators across Blizzard's own shipped code:

• XML validator: 0 of 1,091 files report an error.
• Lua linter: 48 of 2,551 files (1.9%), and those are almost entirely correct — they are Blizzard's own Blizzard_Deprecated* shims, which exist precisely to redefine removed APIs.

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Keeping it current

Re-run after a patch. wow_api_stats and wow_data_status show what you have and when it was synced.

Command	Fetches	Notes
npm run sync-api	Lua API index for all three clients	~1,700 small HTTPS requests
npm run sync-ui-source	Blizzard UI source (shallow git clone, ~44 MB)	Re-run fast-forwards
npm run sync-game-data	Listfile + atlas tables	Add --full for models/maps/sounds
npm run sync-all	All three

The data comes from public upstream mirrors, so re-syncing picks up patch changes without waiting on a release here. Note that those mirrors typically lag a live patch by hours to days.

wago.tools access

Open https://wago.tools/ in a browser and let it load before running sync-game-data or sync-all. The site is behind bot protection, and a browser visit from the same connection clears the way for the atlas download that follows. Doing this first avoids most atlas failures.

If the atlas step still reports HTTP 403, wago.tools is refusing the connection outright — it blocks many datacentre, cloud and VPN IP ranges. Run it from a normal desktop connection, with any VPN off.

This never blocks the rest of the sync. The file index in the same script comes from GitHub and works regardless, and only wow_atlas_search depends on the atlas step — the other 18 tools are unaffected.

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Layout

src/
  config.ts            flavors, interface versions, install detection
  wowapi/              API index loading, search, rendering
  uisource/            Blizzard UI source index, template/mixin/grep search
  gamedata/            listfile and atlas lookup
  lua/                 tokenizer, analyzer, rule tables
  xml/                 UI.xsd parser, XML validator
  toc/                 .toc parser and validator
  scaffold/            addon generator
  tools/               MCP tool definitions
scripts/               the three sync scripts
test/smoke.mjs         46 end-to-end checks against real data
data/                  generated indexes (see .gitignore)

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Known limits

• Widget method inheritance is not modelled. Frame:SetPoint is found, but the server does not know that Button inherits it from Frame. Searching the bare method name works.
• Classic progression flavors share one index. Blizzard publishes generated docs for three running clients; Cata/Wrath/TBC map onto the Classic index, so answers for those are approximate.
• No BLP decoding. Art tools return paths, FileDataIDs and atlas coordinates — not rendered images. Extracting actual textures needs a CASC tool such as wow.export against your own installation.
• The linter's scope model is approximate. It is a lexer with a scope stack, not a full Lua parser. It errs toward silence on ambiguous code.

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Troubleshooting

Server doesn't appear in Claude Desktop. Fully quit from the system tray, not just the window. Check the JSON is valid and backslashes are doubled.

"Cannot find module ... dist/index.js". You skipped npm run build, or the path in your config is wrong. It must be absolute.

Art or icon lookups return nothing. Run npm run sync-game-data, then check wow_data_status.

sync-ui-source fails. You need git on your PATH.

"Filename too long" / "Clone succeeded, but checkout failed" (Windows). Some Blizzard filenames are 108 characters on their own, so a deep clone path can exceed Windows' 260-character limit. The sync scripts pass core.longpaths=true to git to handle this. If you still hit it, clone somewhere shorter — keep the path under about 150 characters (C:\dev\hated-wow-mcp is plenty of room) — or enable long paths system-wide in Windows.

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Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome at github.com/RdyGaming/hated-wow-mcp.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All game data is fetched at runtime from public community mirrors and is not redistributed by this project.