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MCP Integration Overview

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude interact with external tools. Renovatr provides an MCP server that gives Claude direct access to your project data.

What Can You Do?​

With MCP connected, you can ask Claude things like:

  • "List all pending deliverables in my project"
  • "Create a new snag for the cracked tile in the master bathroom"
  • "Mark the kitchen cabinet installation as completed"
  • "What incidents were reported this week?"
  • "Create a task for plumbing inspection, estimated cost $500"
  • "Research pendant-light options, show me the sources, then add only the products I approve to my Design Library"
  • "Find tile suppliers serving Cape Town, let me review them, then add the approved businesses to my Trade & Supplier Directory"

Research Products and Suppliers​

An MCP-compatible assistant with web search can research outside Renovatr and use Renovatr's organization tools to save the records you approve.

Use an approval-first workflow:

  1. Ask the assistant to search, compare options, and include source links.
  2. Review prices, lead times, contact details, and any missing information.
  3. Tell the assistant exactly which products or businesses it may add.
  4. The assistant checks existing records to avoid duplicates, then calls create_catalog_item or create_subcontractor for the approved entries.

The assistant needs the relevant catalog or subcontractor create permission. Catalog financial fields also require financial access. Renovatr does not add researched records automatically.

How It Works​

The Renovatr MCP server is a bridge that runs locally on your machine:

  1. Claude Desktop launches the MCP bridge as a child process
  2. The bridge receives tool calls from Claude via stdin/stdout (stdio transport)
  3. It forwards each call as an HTTP request to your Renovatr instance's MCP endpoint
  4. Your organization API key authenticates the request and scopes project and explicitly granted organization resources
  5. Results flow back to Claude
Claude Desktop ↔ (stdio) ↔ MCP Bridge ↔ (HTTPS) ↔ Renovatr API

Available Tools​

The MCP server exposes 51 tools across nine domains:

DomainToolsOperations
Projects2List assigned projects, get project information
Sections2List, create
Deliverables8List, get by section, reorder, get, create, update, update status, delete
Snags6List, get, create, update, resolve, delete
Incidents5List, get, create, update, delete
Subcontractors10List, get, CRUD, contact CRUD, project assignment
Catalog5List, get, create, update, delete
Project templates11Template, section, and deliverable CRUD
Document design2Read and update PDF and portal design

See Available Tools for the complete reference.

All project-specific tools accept the external projectId returned by list_projects. Renovatr verifies that the API key is assigned to the chosen project and has the permission required for that tool.

Organization tools use separate grants and do not inherit access from an API key's selected-project scope.

Prerequisites​

  • An active Renovatr project
  • An API key with appropriate permissions (at minimum: view permissions for the resources you want to read)
  • Claude Desktop (or any MCP-compatible client)
  • Node.js 18+ installed

Next Steps​