GitHub mode gives you current examples straight from Adobe's sample repository; local mode parses those repositories once into a knowledge base that needs no token and no network. If you are building add-ons regularly, the local path is the one that does not stop working when you hit a rate limit. It is a community project, not an Adobe one.
A community MCP server for people building Adobe Express add-ons. It splits into developer tools — scaffolding a project from sample templates, fetching code examples, getting implementation guidance for a feature — and documentation tools that search the Adobe Express add-ons docs and the Spectrum Web Components repository. Documentation can come live from the GitHub API or from a knowledge base you build locally.
- A new add-on project scaffolded from the official sample templates rather than an invented skeleton
- Code examples for common add-on features, fetched dynamically from GitHub when in GitHub mode
- Implementation guidance for a specific feature you are adding
- The Adobe Express SDK and Spectrum Web Components documentation searched — `queryDocumentation`
- A switch between live GitHub lookups and a locally parsed knowledge base — `setKnowledgeSource`
- An installer that writes the VS Code and workspace configuration for you: `express-mcp-install`, `express-mcp-workspace`, `express-mcp-help`
Node.js v18 or newer, and `npm install -g community-express-dev-mcp` or a clone plus `npm run build`. GitHub mode is the default and wants a GitHub Personal Access Token in `MCP_GITHUB_PAT` — without one you will hit GitHub's rate limits. Local mode is the alternative: clone the two documentation repositories, run `npm run parse-docs` to produce `dist/knowledge_base.json`, and set `KNOWLEDGE_SOURCE_MODE`. For VS Code you also need version 1.99 or newer, the GitHub Copilot extension, and `chat.mcp.enabled` turned on.
One command plus a key — npm install -g community-express-dev-mcp, then supply credentials