Zero-dependency MCP hub fronts nine research repos as 14 tools without merging dependency trees

Emergency-Tutor-7 · reddit · 2026-11-11

A developer shares scientific-toolkit-mcp 0.4.1 (Apache-2.0, Python 3.11+, zero runtime dependencies): an integration hub exposing nine independent research repos — a modeling engine, two numerical stacks, a literature/evidence server, a security-reasoning gate, a plan verifier, and three skill/protocol packages — as 14 MCP tools. Each repo keeps its own name, version history and install path, so upgrading one upstream never forces re-releasing the others.

Three defended design choices:

Fail-closed discovery: a probe contract expects all nine upstreams; missing or version-mismatched tools fail with explicit errors instead of degrading to plausible-looking stubs. Shadowed installs (multiple sys.path entries providing the same module) fail with BADCONFIGURATION, with an env var to pin exact versions. Nonzero subprocess exits become MCP errors; UNKNOWN is never promoted to a successful verification.
Local vs. network declared per tool: literature search needs the network; quote verification and NomosGuard decisions run locally. Nothing pretends to be offline.
Authenticated gateway: unauthenticated calls get 401; the executable audit tool is never exposed over HTTP, and stdio audit execution requires an explicit env opt-in.

The author is candid about limits: it is not a scientific validator, the quantum-reasoning skill is a protocol not a quantum computer, and the two numerical packages keep separate statistics adapters so outputs aren't conflated. CI covers eight real adapter invocations plus a fail-closed smoke test; only the remote health check touches the network.

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Zero-dependency MCP hub fronts nine research repos as 14 tools without merging dependency trees

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