A modification tool that answers "done" gives you nothing to inspect; returning the diff means you can see whether the search pattern hit what it was supposed to hit before moving on. The XML format is more ceremony than a plain write call, and that is the point — the plan and per-change description are captured at the moment of the edit rather than reconstructed afterwards. Note there is no read tool here, so pair it with something that can see the file first.
A small MCP server for code modification. Rather than a free-form write, each change is expressed as a structured instruction: a plan describing the approach, then per-file blocks naming the action, a description of what the change does, and the exact text to find and replace.
- New files from a path and content, confirmed back — `create`
- Targeted edits by search pattern and replacement, returning the diff of what changed rather than just an acknowledgement — `modify`
- Whole-file replacement when the edit is too broad to express as a search — `rewrite`
- File removal — `delete`
- An instruction format that carries intent alongside the edit: a plan block for approach and reasoning, and a description on each change — so the record of why a file moved lives next to the change itself
No account and no key. The package is `mcp-server-code-assist` (0.2.0 in pyproject); the documented launch is `uvx mcp-server-code-assist`, or install it with pip and run the module. A Docker image is also supported, mounting your home directory into the container so the server can reach your files. Configurations are given for Claude Desktop and for Zed.
One command — pip install mcp-server-code-assist