orly-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for generating O’RLY? (O’Reilly parody) book covers that display directly in Claude Desktop application.

Quick Start

Install on MCP Server

simply add the following to your mcp configuration:

// ... other MCP servers ...
"mcp-orly": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": [
        "orly-mcp@latest"
    ]
}
// ... other MCP servers ...

Local Development

# Clone the repository
git clone [your-repo-url]
cd orly-mcp

# Create a virtual environment and install dependencies
uv venv .venv
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

# Test a sample image generation
uv run python test_mcp.py

# Run comprehensive tests
uv run python test_comprehensive.py

# Start the MCP server for development
python start_server.py

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add this MCP server to your Claude Desktop configuration file (claude_desktop_config.json):

Recommended Configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "orly-local": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--with", "fastmcp",
        "--with", "pillow",
        "--with", "fonttools",
        "--with", "requests",
        "python",
        "/path/to/your/orly-mcp/orly_mcp/server.py"
      ],
      "cwd": "/path/to/your/orly-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /path/to/your/orly-mcp with your actual project path.

Alternative: Package Installation

# Install in editable mode
uv pip install -e .

# Claude Desktop config
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "orly-local": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "/your/path/to/orly-mcp", "orly-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Troubleshooting

“ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘mcp’” Error

If you see this error, the MCP dependencies aren’t available:

cd /path/to/your/orly-mcp
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

Make sure your Claude Desktop configuration includes all required dependencies with --with flags.

“ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘fontTools’” Error

Ensure all dependencies are specified in your Claude Desktop configuration:

"args": [
  "run",
  "--with", "fastmcp",
  "--with", "pillow",
  "--with", "fonttools", 
  "--with", "requests",
  "python",
  "/your/path/to/orly_mcp/server.py"
]

Testing Your Setup

Run the comprehensive test to verify everything works:

uv run python test_comprehensive.py

Using the ORLY Tool in Claude

Once configured, you can ask Claude to generate O’RLY book covers like this:

• “Create an O’RLY book cover with the title ‘Advanced Debugging’ and author ‘Jane Developer’”