LABSCO SUMMARY

Documentation sliced to fit a context window.

The problem it solves is specific and real: a large middleware repository has more documentation than any single prompt can carry, so pasting it in crowds out the code you are working on. Serving it as addressable resources means the assistant pulls the plugin or subsystem page it needs and nothing else. Resources are the surface here — this is a reading server, not one that changes your NAS.

What it is

A Python MCP server that scans the TrueNAS middleware repository for its CLAUDE.md documentation files, categorises them, and serves them as small resources so a coding assistant can understand the codebase without drowning in context.

What you get

Architecture and practice: truenas://overview and truenas://development/guidelines
Plugins: truenas://plugins/service-types, truenas://plugins/patterns, truenas://plugins/categories, and truenas://plugins/{plugin_name} for a specific one
API: truenas://api/versioning and truenas://api/models for the Pydantic model patterns
Testing: truenas://testing/overview and truenas://testing/patterns
Subsystems: truenas://subsystems/{name}
Content is summarised on the way out — key sections extracted, code examples trimmed, API signatures kept over full implementations

Requirements

Python 3.11 in a virtualenv with pip install -r requirements.txt, or the bundled docker-compose setup. Point your client at truenas_mcp_server.py using that virtualenv's interpreter.

Setup effort

Follow the published steps — python3.11 -m venv venv_tn_mcp

See installation options

USE CASES

01

Getting oriented in the middleware codebase

Read the overview and development guidelines before opening any source file.

02

Writing a new plugin

Pull the service-types guide and the plugin patterns page, then the documentation for a plugin that already does something similar.

03

Getting the API version right

Read the versioning guide and the model patterns before adding an endpoint.

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

Server setup

TERMINAL

python3.11 -m venv venv_tn_mcp
source venv_tn_mcp/bin/activate # On Windows: venv_tn_mcp\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
./run_server.sh # Or: python truenas_mcp_server.py

MCP Clients

Claude Desktop

CLAUDE DESKTOP · JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "truenas-docs": {
      "command": "<YOUR_PATH_TO_VENV_TN_MCP>/bin/python",
      "args": [
        "<YOUR_PATH_TO_TN_MCP>/truenas_mcp_server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

claude_desktop_config.json

TrueNAS Middleware MCP Server