FLOGVIT.bible

bible.flogvit.com MCP server

Lets an AI assistant read and search the Bible on bible.flogvit.com: the open OSNB, OSNN and OSEN translations, the Hebrew and Greek source texts, and the site's study material. Every answer links back to the page it came from.

Address: https://mcp.bible.flogvit.com/mcp — Streamable HTTP, no account, no key.

Connect an assistant

The full guide, for every client and in all eight languages, is bible.flogvit.com/en/mcp. A browser that opens https://mcp.bible.flogvit.com/ gets the short version of it. Both are rendered from ../src/lib/mcp-info.ts and the mcp.* keys in ../src/lib/dictionaries-mcp.ts, and test/landing.test.ts holds the tool list there against tools/list.

Claude (desktop app and claude.ai): Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. Paste the address, leave authentication empty.

ChatGPT: turn on developer mode under Settings → Apps & Connectors, then create a connector with the address and no authentication.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http flogvit-bible https://mcp.bible.flogvit.com/mcp

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "flogvit-bible": { "url": "https://mcp.bible.flogvit.com/mcp" } } }

VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json):

{ "servers": { "flogvit-bible": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.bible.flogvit.com/mcp" } } }

Then ask as you normally would — "what does John 3:16 say in the Greek?", "where does the Bible talk about forgiveness?", "who was Tamar?". The assistant picks the tools itself.

Without MCP — in a terminal, a script, or an agent that reads skills — the same tools are the command line client flogvit-bible, with a skill and a Claude Code plugin around it: ../cli/README.md.

The tools

References are read in English and Norwegian style alike — John 3:16-18, Joh 3,16.18, 1 Cor 13:4-7, Gen 1:1-2:3, several separated by ; — and book names in all eight site languages, plus the Norwegian letter names («Romerbrevet»).

Verse numbering. Every tool that takes or gives a verse reference has a mapping argument: an id from list_verse_mappings (english_kj, dnb2024_nb, …) or a short name (kjv, dnb2024). A reference is read in that numbering and the answer is numbered in it, so "Mal 4:5" with kjv is osnb's Malachi 3:23. The tools do no remapping of their own: a reference goes through mapChapter(), as /api/chapter?mapping= does, and an osnb address comes out through osnbToMapping(), the cross mapping /api/mappings/kvn/:id builds its verseMap from (src/lib/verse-mapper.ts). Unlike the API, which only knows the 13 named numberings, the MCP takes any of the 1158 mapping files. That is why the caches in verse-mapper.ts have a cap (32).

Quoted Bible text carries its source line. The translations are CC BY 4.0, and the attribution has to follow the text wherever the assistant puts it.

Releasing a new version

Every change a client can see — a tool added or removed, an argument, a description — is a release, and the directories that list the server have to follow it. They do not all get their data the same way:

1. In the PR that changes the tools, raise the version — SERVER_VERSION in src/server.ts and version in server.json, which test/landing.test.ts holds equal. The registry never accepts the same version twice. A new tool or argument is a minor version (1.1.0 → 1.2.0); a removed tool or argument a major one. Change description in server.json too if what the server does has changed: it is what every directory shows, and at most 100 characters.
2. Merge. The orchestra's deployer rolls out bibel and bibel-mcp from the same commit.
3. After the rollout, publish to the registry:
   sh

   cd mcp && bun --env-file=../.env scripts/listings.ts publish

   It refuses while the live server still runs another version or other tools, so it cannot announce what is not out. It logs in with gh auth token (gh must be logged in as flogvit; the namespace is io.github.flogvit) and needs nothing installed.
4. Press Request update on https://mcpservers.org/servers/bible-flogvit-com-en-mcp. It is anonymous and takes effect at once, so press it only after the site is out — pressed earlier, they re-read the old page. Their review takes up to two weeks. The short description there is the one submitted in the form; whether Request update refreshes it too is not known. To change it, email [email protected].
5. Check, about 30 minutes later:
   sh

   cd mcp && bun --env-file=../.env scripts/listings.ts check

   Every line should say ok. mcptry tools follows mcptry's own schedule and can lag; "Connect live" on its page refreshes it. mcpservers.org sits behind a Cloudflare check and cannot be read by the script: open the page and see that the tool list matches.

Where it is listed, and how to take it down

The namespace is GitHub (io.github.flogvit/…), not DNS (com.flogvit/…): flogvit.com's DNS is edited by hand at Domeneshop, and a GitHub login is something a script can do.

The three that are not submitted need nothing but the login: the address, the description and every field Anthropic's form asks for (one-liner, description, documentation and privacy URLs, support contact, use cases, example prompts) are written out in issue #157.

What each one got, and when, is in issue #157 on GitHub.

The guide page is /mcp in ../src/routes/pages/mcp.tsx. Removing it means removing the route, the footer link in ../src/views/layout.tsx, /mcp in ../src/lib/sitemap-paths.ts and test/pages.ts, and the pointer in llms.txt (../src/routes/seo.ts) — then deploying bibel.

Run it locally

Needs the local database the site uses (../.env, DB_PORT=3326).

cd mcpbun installbun run dev            # http://localhost:8080/mcp

Try it with the MCP Inspector (npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector, transport Streamable HTTP, URL http://localhost:8080/mcp), or by hand:

curl -s -X POST localhost:8080/mcp \  -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_passage","arguments":{"reference":"John 3:16"}}}'

GET /healthz checks that the database user can read every content table and reads John 3:16: 200 with the verse, or 503 with the reason — a missing grant is named.

Tests

cd mcp && bun run test && bun run typecheck

test/server.test.ts calls every tool over HTTP against the local database and checks that each answer links only to localised pages on bible.flogvit.com (or the sources the licence names) and never shows the site's [ref:…] markup. test/grants.test.ts creates a local MySQL user with exactly the grants the server gets in production, runs every tool as that user, and checks that the user tables refuse it — a tool that needs a table outside the grants fails there — and that /healthz names a table whose grant is revoked. test/books.test.ts checks that every book name and abbreviation the site shows, in every language, finds its own book. test/find-references.test.ts finds every book by every name inside a sentence, and its last verse as the last. test/cli.test.ts runs the command line client (../cli/) as its own program, with node and bun, against a listening server. test/lookups.test.ts holds the six direct lookups to every row of their tables. test/mapping.test.ts holds mapping to mapChapter() over every chapter where the King James numbering differs from osnb, plus Malachi 4, cross-references in and out, and check_references. test/tool-quality.test.ts reads tools/list and fails on a tool without a title, a description or all four annotation hints, an argument or output field without a description, an optional argument that does not say its default, or an allowed value its description does not name — what a client, and mcptry.com's Tool quality score, read before calling anything.

bibel's own bun test in the repo root does not run these (bunfig.toml): this package has its own dependencies.

How it is built

• Its own package, its own image. @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and its dependencies live here and never reach the site's image. The image is built from the repo root (docker build -f mcp/Dockerfile .) because the server reads the database through the site's own getters in src/lib/ — an answer here is the page there.
• The image carries the vendored @free-bible/kvn (kvn-package/, 109 MB of mapping files), for the verse numberings. Stage it first — bun run oppsett in bibel, which bibel's deploy does before it builds — or the build stops at the COPY. test/image.test.ts follows every import from src/index.ts and fails when the image would lack a file or a package; the tests themselves cannot see it, since they resolve through bibel's own node_modules.
• Its own database user, read-only on content. src/grants.ts grants SELECT on the tables the import owns (CONTENT_TABLES) and nothing else, so users' notes, manuscripts and shares are out of reach.
• Stateless. One MCP server per request; any request can land on any process.
• A global cap, not a per-IP one. Claude and ChatGPT call connectors from their own servers, so one IP is many users. Over the cap the server answers 503 with Retry-After instead of queueing without end. The command line client is the one caller it can tell apart, and the one most likely to come in a loop, so it may hold only MCP_MAX_CONCURRENT_CLI of the slots.

Configuration

bun scripts/grants.ts <database> prints the GRANT statements for the database user. They are derived from CONTENT_TABLES, but applied only when someone runs them: when the import gets a new content table, run them again as the database admin. Until then /healthz answers 503 and names the table.