For Beginners

What Is This Tool?

The Prototypes Archive is a collection of 10 early experiments from MCP Tool Shop that were published to npm and later deprecated. They’ve been gathered into a single repository so the code isn’t lost and anyone can learn from the approaches that were tried.

This is not an active project — it’s a museum. The code works (or worked at the time), but no bugs will be fixed and no features will be added. Think of it as a reference library.

Who Is This For?

• Developers curious about how MCP Tool Shop tools evolved — many current products started as ideas in these prototypes
• Learners looking for real-world examples of TypeScript monorepos, CLI tools, physics engines, music notation, and name-clearance workflows
• Contributors to other MCP Tool Shop projects who want to understand the historical context behind design decisions

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ — Check with node --version. Download from nodejs.org if needed
• pnpm 10+ — The monorepo uses pnpm workspaces. Enable it with corepack enable (ships with Node.js 20+), then pnpm is available automatically
• Git — To clone the repository
• Basic terminal skills — You’ll run commands in a terminal

Your First 5 Minutes

Minute 1: Clone

git clone https://github.com/mcp-tool-shop-org/prototypes.git
cd prototypes

Minute 2: Install dependencies

pnpm install

Minute 3: Build everything

pnpm build

This runs Turborepo across all 10 packages. Some may have build scripts, others won’t — that’s expected for archived code.

Minute 4: Pick a package and explore

ls packages/
cd packages/physics-svg
cat package.json
ls src/

Each package is self-contained with its own package.json and source directory.

Minute 5: Run tests (if available)

cd ../..     # back to repo root
pnpm test

Not all packages have tests. Those that do will run; others will be skipped by Turborepo.

Common Mistakes

1. Using npm instead of pnpm — This is a pnpm workspace. Running npm install will not resolve workspace dependencies correctly. Use pnpm install
2. Expecting active maintenance — These are archived prototypes. If something doesn’t build or a dependency is outdated, that’s expected. The code is preserved as-is from the time of deprecation
3. Trying to publish — All packages are marked "private": true to prevent accidental publishing. The original npm packages have been deprecated
4. Missing corepack — If pnpm isn’t found, run corepack enable first. This activates the pnpm version specified in the repo’s packageManager field (pnpm 10.28.2)
5. Looking for docs in each package — Most prototypes had minimal documentation. The best overview is in the Packages page of this handbook

Next Steps

• Browse the Packages page for descriptions of all 10 prototypes
• Read the Getting Started guide for full setup details
• Explore the source code in packages/ to see how each prototype was built
• Check the main MCP Tool Shop site for the current, maintained tools

Glossary

• Monorepo — A single Git repository that contains multiple packages or projects. This repo uses pnpm workspaces and Turborepo to manage 10 packages together
• pnpm — A fast, disk-space-efficient package manager for Node.js. Similar to npm but uses a content-addressable store to avoid duplicate downloads
• Turborepo — A build system for JavaScript/TypeScript monorepos that runs tasks in parallel and caches results
• Deprecated — A package that is no longer maintained and should not be used in new projects. The code still exists but won’t receive updates
• Workspace — In pnpm, a way to link multiple packages in a monorepo so they can depend on each other without publishing to npm
• MCP — Model Context Protocol, a standard for AI assistants to use external tools. Several of these prototypes explored MCP-related concepts
• @mcptoolshop — The npm scope (namespace) under which these packages were originally published