APS MCP Server (Advanced)

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes Autodesk Forma project data over Streamable HTTP, acting on behalf of a signed-in Autodesk user. Built for the AU2026 advanced workshop, starting from the code the beginner session produces.

What it does

The server connects GitHub Copilot (or any MCP-compatible client) to the hubs and projects the signed-in user can see, and can render designs as interactive 3D previews directly in chat. Clients must sign in through the server’s own OAuth endpoints before they can call a tool.

MCP tools

Viewer UI resource

viewer.html is registered as an MCP app resource under ui://aps-mcp/viewer.html. preview-design references it via _meta.ui.resourceUri, so a client that supports MCP Apps renders the viewer in a panel and feeds the tool’s structuredContent to it. Selecting an object in 3D reports back to the host as extra model context.

There is no build step. mcp.js reads viewer.html from disk at module load, and the one browser-side library it needs is loaded from a CDN.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 24+
• An APS application with data:read scope (create one here), with a Callback URL of /auth/callback
• An Autodesk Forma hub your APS app is provisioned to, and membership of at least one project in it — the 3-legged flow uses your permissions

Setup

Create a .env file at the project root:

APS_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id
APS_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret

Then:

npm install
npm start

The start script loads .env via Node’s --env-file-if-exists flag, so any of these can go there. .env is gitignored; the code only ever reads process.env. Where the variables are already in the environment — a Codespace with repository secrets, a container — no .env is needed and Node skips it.