r-packagedev-mcp

A standalone Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes advanced R package development capabilities to AI assistants through natural language.

Overview

r-packagedev-mcp wraps the four most important R package development packages into a unified MCP tool surface:

Why a standalone server instead of an add-on?

Existing R MCP servers (e.g. rmcp) focus on statistical analysis – running arbitrary R code, fitting models, generating plots. They are not designed for the package development workflow.

Building a standalone server allows:

• Purpose-built tool interfaces with clear parameter names and defaults that match package development conventions.
• No dependency on a third-party R MCP server that may have a different architecture, authentication model, or update cadence.
• Portability – the server is a single Node.js binary that proxies calls to Rscript; it works anywhere R is installed.
• Safety – tools are scoped to specific, well-defined package development operations rather than unrestricted R code execution.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18
• R ≥ 4.1 with the following packages installed:

  install.packages(c("usethis", "devtools", "renv", "testthat"))

Installation

From source

git clone https://github.com/B0ydT/r-packagedev-mcp.git
cd r-packagedev-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Running the server

node dist/index.js

The server communicates over stdio (standard input/output), which is the default transport used by Claude Desktop, VS Code Copilot, Cursor, and most MCP clients.

Configuration

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "r-packagedev": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/r-packagedev-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code / Cursor (.mcp.json or settings)

{
  "servers": {
    "r-packagedev": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/r-packagedev-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Tool reference

usethis

devtools

renv

testthat

Development

# Type-check without emitting
npm run lint

# Build
npm run build

# Run in dev mode (ts-node, no build step)
npm run dev

Architecture

src/
├── index.ts          # Entry point – starts stdio MCP server
├── server.ts         # Registers all tools with the MCP SDK
├── r-executor.ts     # Spawns Rscript subprocesses & formats results
└── tools/
    ├── usethis.ts    # usethis tool schemas + handlers
    ├── devtools.ts   # devtools tool schemas + handlers
    ├── renv.ts       # renv tool schemas + handlers
    └── testthat.ts   # testthat tool schemas + handlers

Each tool module exports:

• A schema map (z.ZodObject per tool) that defines input validation.
• A handler map that translates validated inputs into an Rscript -e call and returns the formatted output as MCP text content.

License

CC BY 4.0