MCP Server

lectito-mcp is a local stdio MCP server for article search and reading. MCP clients start it as a subprocess and exchange JSON-RPC messages over stdin and stdout.

The server exposes two tools:

ToolDescription
search_articlessearch DuckDuckGo HTML results and return titles, URLs, and snippets.
read_articlefetch a public HTTP(S) URL and extract readable article content with Lectito.

Because this is a stdio server, keep stdout reserved for MCP messages.

Write logs to stderr if you wrap or supervise the binary.

For agent workflow instructions, see the Article Reader Skill. The skill points agents at search_articles and read_article when those MCP tools are available.

Build

Install the published MCP server with Cargo:

cargo install lectito-mcp

The binary will be available as:

lectito-mcp

Build the release binary from the repository root:

cargo build -p lectito-mcp --release

The binary will be at:

target/release/lectito-mcp

For local development, you can build the debug binary:

cargo build -p lectito-mcp

Then run a minimal tools-list smoke test:

printf '%s\n' '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' \
  | target/debug/lectito-mcp

Configuration

Set these environment variables from your MCP client config when you need to change the defaults:

VariableDefaultPurpose
LECTITO_MCP_DEFAULT_SEARCH_RESULTS5Default search_articles result count.
LECTITO_MCP_MAX_SEARCH_RESULTS10Upper bound for search_articles.limit.
LECTITO_MCP_MAX_FETCH_BYTES2097152Maximum bytes read while fetching a page.
LECTITO_MCP_REDIRECT_LIMIT5Maximum redirect hops for article fetches.
LECTITO_MCP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECS20HTTP request timeout in seconds.
LECTITO_MCP_MAX_ARTICLE_CHARS30000Upper bound for read_article.maxChars.
LECTITO_MCP_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORKfalseAllow private or loopback fetch targets.

Leave LECTITO_MCP_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORK=false unless you intentionally want the server to read URLs from local or private networks.

Codex

Codex supports stdio MCP servers in the CLI and IDE extension. The durable configuration lives in ~/.codex/config.toml, or in a trusted repo-local .codex/config.toml.

The simplest install is:

codex mcp add lectito -- lectito-mcp

If you are using a local checkout instead of the Cargo-installed binary, point Codex at the built executable:

codex mcp add lectito -- /path/to/lectito/target/release/lectito-mcp

For a checked-in project config with the Cargo-installed binary, add a table like this:

[mcp_servers.lectito]
command = "lectito-mcp"
startup_timeout_sec = 10
tool_timeout_sec = 60

[mcp_servers.lectito.env]
LECTITO_MCP_MAX_SEARCH_RESULTS = "10"
LECTITO_MCP_DEFAULT_SEARCH_RESULTS = "5"

During development, run through Cargo only after the crate has been built at least once:

[mcp_servers.lectito]
command = "cargo"
args = ["run", "-p", "lectito-mcp", "--quiet"]
cwd = "/path/to/lectito"

Restart Codex after editing config.toml. In the Codex TUI, use /mcp to check whether the server connected.

Claude Code

Claude Code can add local stdio MCP servers with claude mcp add. Put -- before the server command so Claude does not parse server flags as Claude flags.

claude mcp add --transport stdio lectito \
  -- lectito-mcp

To share the setup with a project, create .mcp.json in the repo:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lectito": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "lectito-mcp",
      "env": {
        "LECTITO_MCP_MAX_SEARCH_RESULTS": "10",
        "LECTITO_MCP_DEFAULT_SEARCH_RESULTS": "5"
      }
    }
  }
}

If you prefer to run through Cargo while developing:

claude mcp add --transport stdio lectito \
  -- cargo run -p lectito-mcp --quiet

Run that command from the repository root, or use a project .mcp.json with an absolute binary path.

Pi Coding Agent

Pi does not include built-in MCP support. Its documented extension model is skills, prompt templates, TypeScript extensions, and packages. For Pi, install the article-reading workflow as a skill, then use the Lectito CLI or a custom Pi extension for the backend.

Pi can load skill directories with --skill. Use the checked-in article-reader skill to teach Pi when to search for articles, read URLs, and cite sources:

pi --skill /path/to/lectito/skills/article-reader

For a one-shot run:

pi --skill /path/to/lectito/skills/article-reader \
  "Read and summarize https://example.com/article"

For persistent discovery, place the skill under one of Pi's skill locations, such as .pi/skills/, .agents/skills/, ~/.pi/agent/skills/, or ~/.agents/skills/.

If you are building a Pi extension that bridges to MCP, build lectito-mcp from the same checkout and launch this stdio command from the extension:

cargo build -p lectito-mcp --release

/path/to/lectito/target/release/lectito-mcp

The local Pi CLI used while writing this page exposes pi install <source> for packages and --skill <path> for skill directories, but no MCP subcommand.

Sources