@cyanheads/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server
Search and retrieve US consumer product recalls from the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.
3 Tools • 1 Skill
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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://cpsc-recalls.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://cpsc-recalls.caseyjhand.com/mcp)
---
## Overview
Consumer product recalls from the CPSC [saferproducts.gov](https://www.saferproducts.gov/) database — toys, electronics, furniture, appliances, children's products, tools, and clothing. Search recalls by product, brand, retailer, or hazard, fetch full detail for a specific recall number, or pull a recent-recalls feed for a date window.
### Tools
| Tool | Description |
|:---|:---|
| `cpsc_search_recalls` | Search consumer product recalls by title, product name, brand, retailer, importer, distributor, hazard, remedy, or description keyword, with optional date filtering and offset paging |
| `cpsc_get_recall` | Full detail for a single recall by recall number — hazards, remedy, products, injuries, images, and the official CPSC page |
| `cpsc_get_recent` | Fetch the most recent recalls ordered newest-first, scoped to a configurable date window |
### Skills
| Skill | Description |
|:---|:---|
| `cpsc-recalls-guide` | Find and confirm US consumer product recalls with the `cpsc_*` tools — search formulation, recall-number quirks, and when an empty result proves nothing |
CPSC covers consumer products, including some that sit next to another agency's domain: child-resistant packaging for drugs and supplements, ATVs and snowmobiles, bicycle tires, and gun safes and locks. Food and drugs (FDA), on-road vehicles and their tires (NHTSA), boats (USCG), pesticides (EPA), and firearms (ATF) belong to other agencies; every response carries this jurisdiction note.
## Capability reference
### `cpsc_search_recalls` tool
- At least one criterion, combined with AND: nine text filters of up to 500 characters each (`title_search`, usually the highest-signal, plus `product_name`, `manufacturer`, `retailer`, `importer`, `distributor`, `description_search`, `remedy`, `hazard_search`) and two date axes (`date_start`/`date_end` for the issue date, `updated_start`/`updated_end` for the last CPSC publish date); `limit` (1–10,000, default 20; a page holds at most 200) and `offset` page through `total_found`
- Each text filter matches every word, in any order, as a case-insensitive substring with no stemming — search a stem (`batter` finds battery and batteries)
- Returns the issue and last-published dates, hazards, remedy options and instructions, products, UPCs, manufacturer, importer, retailer, and distributor names, images, `cpsc_url`, and per-recall `data_quality_notes`; zero matches is an empty success whose `effectiveQuery` echoes the criteria and whose notice names the criterion to relax. Failures: `missing_criteria`, `invalid_date_range`, `upstream_rejected` (not retryable), `upstream_error` (retryable)
- `has_more` is the paging signal; a page cut short by the 64,000-byte response budget, or held to 200 under a larger `limit`, carries a notice with the offset to continue from
---
### `cpsc_get_recall` tool
- One `recall_number`: 5 digits (`"25043"`), with a letter `a`–`d` on some 1998–2001 records (`"99003a"`); only the record with exactly that number is returned
- Returns the complete record — nullable `description` (where model numbers usually live), hazards, remedy options and instructions, every product variant, UPCs, injury narrative, company names by role, country of manufacture, images, coordinated-agency recall URLs, and `data_quality_notes`
- Failures: `not_found` (resolve a number through `cpsc_search_recalls` or `cpsc_get_recent`; for the bare base of a lettered family such as `01160`, the hint names the separate lettered recalls `01160a`, `01160b`, `01160c`), `upstream_rejected` (not retryable), `upstream_error` (retryable)
---
### `cpsc_get_recent` tool
- `days` look-back window (1–365, default 30) anchored to today; `limit` (1–10,000, default 20; a page holds at most 100) and `offset` page through `total_found`, since narrowing `days` drops the oldest recalls rather than paging. Older recalls are reachable through `cpsc_search_recalls` date bounds
- Returns a lightweight record per recall — number, date, title, hazards, remedy types, product names, `cpsc_url`, `data_quality_notes` — for `cpsc_get_recall` to expand; `has_more` is the paging signal, and an empty window, an offset past the end, a budget-cut page, or a page held to 100 under a larger `limit` carries a notice. Failures: `upstream_rejected` (not retryable), `upstream_error` (retryable)
---
### `cpsc-recalls-guide` skill
- Helps an agent check whether a specific product, model, serial, or UPC was recalled, sweep a brand's or retailer's recall history, monitor new or republished recalls for a hazard, and decide whether a product is CPSC's at all
- Served over MCP as the resource `skill://cpsc-recalls-guide/SKILL.md` under the template `skill://{+path}`; also ships in `skills/` for plugin installs and the `.mcpb` bundle
## Features
Built on [`@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core`](https://github.com/cyanheads/mcp-ts-core): stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (`none` / `jwt` / `oauth`), swappable storage (`in-memory`, `filesystem`, `Supabase`, `Cloudflare KV/R2/D1`), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.
CPSC-specific:
- Full client for the CPSC saferproducts.gov public recalls API — search, single-recall detail, and a recent-recalls feed
- Every-word matching on all nine text filters — each word in any order, as a case-insensitive substring with no stemming, against the plain text the results show — applied over the complete result set before paging so `total_found` and `has_more` stay accurate; `hazard_search` (alias `hazard`) covers hazard text, product names, and remedy instructions
- Handles 5-digit recall numbers and the lettered numbers some 1998–2001 records carry, matching the requested number exactly
- One 50-second budget per call covers every CPSC attempt and retry, so a stalled request ends as a retryable `upstream_error` before an MCP client's default 60-second timeout
- Jurisdiction boundary documented in every response — names the drug-packaging, vehicle, tire, and gun-safe products CPSC does recall, and the agencies that own the rest
Agent-friendly output:
- Provenance on every response — `source_note`, `cpsc_url`, and `(CPSC source text)` blockquote labels distinguish relayed CPSC narrative from the server's own guidance
- Plain text on both surfaces — the HTML markup and character codes CPSC stores in some records (`&`, `
`, stray table tags) are converted to plain text before matching and output, and `content[]` escapes Markdown so model and serial numbers such as `1HFVE05**K4000003` keep every character; recall pages and coordinated recalls render as links, and product images render inline with their captions; HTTP(S) addresses preserve CPSC’s URL values on both surfaces, while other schemes remain visible as text
- Pagination discriminators — `total_found`, `offset`, `has_more`, and `truncated` on every search/recent response so agents can tell when results are clipped and page with `offset`; each surface of a page stays within a 64,000-byte budget, and a notice gives the next offset when the budget or the page ceiling ends a page early; an oversized `limit` is served at the page ceiling rather than rejected
- `data_quality_notes` on every response — gaps observed in the upstream record (missing hazard text, no product entries), derived from which fields CPSC left blank rather than any judgment call
- Jurisdiction note (`cpsc_jurisdiction`) on every response — lets agents route callers to the correct agency (FDA, NHTSA, USCG, EPA, ATF) when a product is out of scope
## Getting started
Connect to the hosted instance (Streamable HTTP, stateless), no install:
```sh
claude mcp add --transport http cpsc-recalls-mcp-server https://cpsc-recalls.caseyjhand.com/mcp
```
Or run it locally:
```sh
claude mcp add cpsc-recalls-mcp-server -- npx -y @cyanheads/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server
```
For other clients, add this to the MCP config file:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"cpsc-recalls-mcp-server": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server"]
}
}
}
```
No API key is required — the CPSC public recalls API is freely accessible. For Docker or a source build, see [Running the server](#running-the-server).
## Configuration
All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas. Key environment variables:
| Variable | Description | Default |
|:---|:---|:---|
| `MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE` | Transport: `stdio` or `http` | `stdio` |
| `MCP_HTTP_PORT` | HTTP server port | `3010` |
| `MCP_HTTP_HOST` | HTTP server host | `127.0.0.1` |
| `MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH` | HTTP endpoint path | `/mcp` |
| `MCP_PUBLIC_URL` | Public origin for TLS-terminating reverse-proxy deployments | — |
| `MCP_SESSION_MODE` | Session handling: `auto`, `stateful`, or `stateless`. The server declares `stateless` in `src/index.ts`; setting this overrides it. | `stateless` |
| `MCP_AUTH_MODE` | Authentication: `none`, `jwt`, or `oauth` | `none` |
| `MCP_LOG_LEVEL` | Log level (`debug`, `info`, `warning`, `error`) | `info` |
| `LOGS_DIR` | Directory for log files (Node.js only) | `/logs` |
| `LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOADS` | Log each failed tool call's arguments and result, redacted by key name and capped at `LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOAD_MAX_BYTES` (default `16384`). A secret inside a free-form value is not redacted. | `false` |
| `STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE` | Storage backend: `in-memory`, `filesystem`, `supabase`, `cloudflare-kv/r2/d1` | `in-memory` |
| `OTEL_ENABLED` | Enable OpenTelemetry | `false` |
No server-specific API keys are required. See [`.env.example`](./.env.example) for the full list of optional overrides.
## Running the server
### Local development
Requires [Bun v1.4.0](https://bun.sh/) or higher (or Node.js v24+). No API key is needed.
- **Clone and install:**
```sh
git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server.git
cd cpsc-recalls-mcp-server && bun install
cp .env.example .env # optional — no required API keys
```
- **Build and run the production version:**
```sh
# One-time build
bun run rebuild
# Run the built server
bun run start:stdio
# or
bun run start:http
```
For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and port; the server listens at `http://localhost:3010/mcp`:
```sh
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
```
- **Run checks and tests:**
```sh
bun run devcheck # Lint, format, typecheck, security
bun run test # Vitest test suite
```
### Docker
```sh
docker build -t cpsc-recalls-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -p 3010:3010 cpsc-recalls-mcp-server
```
To run the published image over stdio from an MCP client, use `"command": "docker"` with `"args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio", "ghcr.io/cyanheads/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server:latest"]`.
The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to `/var/log/cpsc-recalls-mcp-server`. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with `--build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false` to omit them.
## Project structure
| Directory | Purpose |
|:---|:---|
| `src/index.ts` | `createApp()` entry point — registers tools, serves the published skill from `skills/`, and inits the CPSC service |
| `skills/` | `cpsc-recalls-guide/SKILL.md`, the published agent skill |
| `src/mcp-server/tools` | Tool definitions (`definitions/*.tool.ts`) — search, get-recall, get-recent — plus `response-budget.ts`, the page size budget the two list tools share, and `markdown-escape.ts`, the escaping applied to CPSC text in `content[]` |
| `src/services/cpsc-recall` | CPSC recall service — API client, types, and `normalize-text.ts`, which converts CPSC's HTML markup and character codes to plain text |
## Development guide
See [`CLAUDE.md`](./CLAUDE.md) / [`AGENTS.md`](./AGENTS.md) for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:
- Handlers throw, framework catches — no `try/catch` in tool logic
- Use `ctx.log` for request-scoped logging, `ctx.state` for tenant-scoped storage
- Register new tools in the `createApp()` arrays in `src/index.ts`
- Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields
## Contributing
Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:
```sh
bun run devcheck
bun run test
```
## License
Apache-2.0 — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.