Molecare MCP Server

MoleCare MCP Server

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives Claude and other MCP clients access to:

1. Dermatology knowledge — ABCDE education, SNOMED CT / ICD-10 helpers, risk-factor prompts
2. Optional MoleCare API tools — moles, trends, analysis (your backend + API key)
3. Optional MLOps / ops tools — shipped as a separate binary, molecare-ops-mcp (mock-first)

Not a medical device. Outputs are educational and operational aids only. Do not use for diagnosis or treatment decisions.

Product site: molecare.co.uk · App: iOS · Android

---

Why this exists

MoleCare helps people track moles over time and prepare for clinician visits. This MCP server lets developers and operators:

• Query educational skin-health knowledge from Claude Desktop / Cursor
• Prototype assistant flows against a MoleCare-compatible API
• Explore MLOps tooling with safe mock data when no credentials are set

---

Quick start

No credentials, no database, no cloud account. Add this to your MCP client config and restart it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "molecare": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "molecare-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

For Claude Desktop on macOS that file is ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json.

The dermatology knowledge tools work immediately — they read from a knowledge base bundled in the package. Everything that talks to a backend returns clearly-labelled mock data until you configure it, so you can explore the whole tool surface before deciding whether you want any of it.

To try it without a client at all:

npx -y molecare-mcp

It starts and waits on stdio. No output means it is working.

---

Connecting a real backend

Only needed if you are running a MoleCare-compatible API:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "molecare": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "molecare-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MOLECARE_API_URL": "http://localhost:8080/api",
        "MOLECARE_API_KEY": "your-local-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use localhost (or your own deployment). Do not paste production keys into config files that sync to cloud drives.

---

Environment variables

Every setting is optional. The public server falls back to mock product data without API credentials, and its knowledge tools continue to work offline. For the operations server, use NODE_ENV=development (the .env.example default) to keep integrations in mock mode.

Shared by both binaries

Public server (molecare-mcp)

The public server has no additional settings. Its dermatology knowledge works without configuration; the shared MoleCare API variables enable its optional mole and profile tools.

Operations server (molecare-ops-mcp)

The operations binary also accepts the shared settings above. These additional variables only configure its infrastructure, monitoring, and CI/CD tools:

See .env.example for the copyable source-of-truth list.

---

Tools

Dermatology knowledge — no setup required

These are the reason most people install this. They answer from a bundled knowledge base and need no API, no key, and no network.

Resources: molecare://knowledge/* — ABCDE criteria, Fitzpatrick skin types, prevention, when to see a dermatologist. molecare://ontology/* — SNOMED CT and ICD-10 reference lists, the full snomed-icd10-map mapping table, and risk factors, all with provenance metadata.

Educational prompts

The server also exposes three reusable MCP prompts: walk_through_abcde, prepare_dermatology_appointment, and explain_snomed_code. They help a client organize observations or explain terminology without diagnosing a condition, assigning urgency, or producing a risk score. Every rendered prompt includes the non-diagnostic educational disclaimer; the terminology prompt requires a SNOMED CT code argument.

What the terminology actually covers

Every SNOMED concept the server advertises resolves through lookup_medical_concept and maps through map_snomed_to_icd10. Ask for a code outside the subset and the response carries a coverage block listing what is bundled, rather than an empty result. Browse the whole table with the molecare://ontology/snomed-icd10-map resource.

ICD-10 coverage is deliberately broader than SNOMED coverage. Expanding the bundled SNOMED concept set is on hold pending a redistribution question with SNOMED International: free use in a member country is not the same as free redistribution via npm to non-member territories (#49). WHO licenses ICD-10 more permissively at this level, so that side can grow in the meantime.

Terminology provenance

Bundled SNOMED CT / ICD-10 helpers are an educational subset, not a licensed terminology distribution. Named sources live in src/resources/terminology-provenance.ts and are returned on map_snomed_to_icd10 and the ontology resources:

The dataset itself lives in src/resources/terminology-data.ts and is the single source for both the src/api/ontology-client.ts mock paths and the ontology resources. Educational prose without clinical codes lives in src/resources/medical-kb.ts.

MoleCare product data — needs an API

Returns labelled mock data until MOLECARE_API_URL is set.

These exist because MoleCare operates this stack from an assistant. They are of little use outside that context, and all of them return mock data unless the matching backend is configured.

They are not part of the molecare-mcp tool list. Loading 39 infrastructure tools that nobody outside MoleCare can use made it measurably harder for a model to pick the right dermatology tool, so they live in their own server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "molecare-ops": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "-p", "molecare-mcp", "molecare-ops-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The AWS tools need @aws-sdk/client-ec2 and @aws-sdk/client-cloudwatch, which are optional peer dependencies — they are not installed by default, because they add 33 MB that nobody wanting the dermatology tools should have to download. Install them yourself if you want live AWS data:

npm i @aws-sdk/client-ec2 @aws-sdk/client-cloudwatch

---

Architecture

Claude / Cursor / MCP client
        │ stdio (JSON-RPC)
        ▼
  molecare-mcp                    molecare-ops-mcp
   ├─ medical KB (local)           ├─ MLflow / Feast clients
   ├─ MoleCare API client          ├─ AWS / CI / K8s clients
   └─ ontology client              └─ database / app clients
        │    (14 tools)                 │   (39 tools, internal)
        │                               │
        └───────────┬───────────────────┘
                    └─ optional HTTP GET /health  (Docker / ECS)

---

Docker

docker build -t molecare-mcp .
docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 molecare-mcp
curl http://localhost:3000/health

---

Security

• Never commit .env files or API keys — see SECURITY.md to report a vulnerability
• Prefer mock mode for demos and screenshots
• Tools that accept userId can return PHI only if you point them at a real backend with real auth — treat that as production
• Rate-limit and auth belong on your API, not only on the MCP process

---

Medical disclaimer

MoleCare MCP provides educational information and developer tooling. It does not diagnose melanoma or any disease. Always consult a qualified clinician for medical concerns.

---

Development

git clone https://github.com/MoleCare/molecare-mcp.git
cd molecare-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm run dev      # auto-reload
npm run inspect  # browse tools in MCP Inspector

Contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first — it covers the mock-first rule, the clinical-safety boundary for anything touching medical content, and how to pick up a good first issue.

Please keep secrets out of examples and prefer localhost defaults.

---

Related

Environment variables: .env.example is the authoritative list. CI compares it with the variables reachable from both server entrypoints and checks the public/operations grouping above.

• Model Context Protocol
• MoleCare
• MoleCare-ML — melanoma classification service and training notebooks

---

Contributors

Thank you to everyone who has helped molecare-mcp.

The list is filled by Contributors from GitHub commits, bots omitted — never hand-maintained, because a stale list is worse than none. Contributor graph · good first issue

License

Apache-2.0 © MoleCare LTD