RFC Document Bridge MCP server

The RFC MCP Server is a specialized server that allows programmatic interaction with RFC documents from ietf.org. It provides tools for fetching, searching, and extracting specific sections from RFC documents, with support for both HTML and TXT formats and built-in caching for improved performance.

Installation

Configure your MCP settings file to use the server by adding the following to your configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rfc-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@mjpitz/mcp-rfc"],
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

The RFC MCP Server provides several tools to interact with RFC documents.

get_rfc

This tool allows you to fetch an RFC document by its number.

Parameters:

• number (string, required): RFC number (e.g. "2616")
• format (string, optional): Output format (full, metadata, sections), default: "full"

Example:

{
  "number": "2616",
  "format": "metadata"
}

search_rfcs

Search for RFCs by keyword or phrase.

Parameters:

• query (string, required): Search keyword or phrase
• limit (number, optional): Maximum number of results to return, default: 10

Example:

{
  "query": "http protocol",
  "limit": 5
}

get_rfc_section

Retrieve a specific section from an RFC document.

Parameters:

• number (string, required): RFC number (e.g. "2616")
• section (string, required): Section title or number to retrieve

Example:

{
  "number": "2616",
  "section": "Introduction"
}

Available Resources

The server provides resource templates for accessing RFC documents:

• rfc://{number}: Get an RFC document by its number
• rfc://search/{query}: Search for RFCs by keyword

Usage Examples

Fetching a Specific RFC

To fetch RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1):

{
  "tool": "get_rfc",
  "parameters": {
    "number": "2616",
    "format": "full"
  }
}

Searching for RFCs

To search for RFCs related to "http protocol":

{
  "tool": "search_rfcs",
  "parameters": {
    "query": "http protocol",
    "limit": 5
  }
}

Extracting a Specific Section

To get only the "Introduction" section from RFC 2616:

{
  "tool": "get_rfc_section",
  "parameters": {
    "number": "2616",
    "section": "Introduction"
  }
}

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "rfc-server" '{"command":"npx","args":["@mjpitz/mcp-rfc"],"disabled":false,"autoApprove":[]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "rfc-server": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "@mjpitz/mcp-rfc"
            ],
            "disabled": false,
            "autoApprove": []
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "rfc-server": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "@mjpitz/mcp-rfc"
            ],
            "disabled": false,
            "autoApprove": []
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect