gitignore-recommender MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server that recommends and generates .gitignore files from the official github/gitignore repository.

This TypeScript-based MCP server provides:

• Recommendation tool: recommend_gitignore — analyze a workspace and suggest matching templates.
• Generation tool: generate_gitignore — fetch templates and generate or write a combined .gitignore.

Key files

• Implementation: src/index.ts
• Compiled entrypoint: build/index.js
• Package manifest: package.json

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Build the server:

npm run build

For development with auto-rebuild:

npm run watch

Run locally

You can run the compiled server directly:

node build/index.js

Or use npx to run the package:

npx -y gitignore-recommender

When run, the server listens on stdio and exposes MCP tools such as recommend_gitignore and generate_gitignore.

Usage

Examples of how to invoke the tools (via an MCP-capable client):

• Recommend templates (inspect-only): JSON call to tool recommend_gitignore with optional arguments:

{
  "workspacePath": "d:/dev/projects/mcpservers",
  "maxFiles": 20000
}

• Generate a .gitignore by auto-detection and write to disk:

{
  "workspacePath": "d:/dev/projects/mcpservers",
  "topN": 1,
  "writeToFile": true
}

• Generate from explicit templates and return content (no write):

{
  "workspacePath": "C:/path/to/project",
  "templates": ["Node", "VisualStudioCode"],
  "writeToFile": false
}

Preparing for distribution via npx

To make this package runnable via npx you should:

1. Update package.json with repository, author and license metadata (already included in this repo). See package.json.

2. Ensure the bin field points to the compiled entrypoint (this repo already has: "gitignore-recommender": "./build/index.js").

3. Build the package before publishing:

npm run build

4. Publish to npm (choose a package name that is available):

npm publish --access public

After publishing, users can run:

npx -y gitignore-recommender

or add it as the MCP server command in your MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitignore-recommender": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "gitignore-recommender"]
    }
  }
}

Notes and considerations

• Network access is required at runtime to fetch templates from raw.githubusercontent.com.
• The MCP server must have write permission to the target workspace if you plan to use generate_gitignore with writeToFile: true.
• Update the repository field in package.json to your GitHub repo before publishing so users can find the source.