payfast-mcp

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for PayFast, South Africa's leading payment gateway. Enables AI assistants like Claude to securely interact with your PayFast merchant account.

Features

Transaction management — fetch transaction details, query history, process tokenized charges
Subscription management — fetch, pause, unpause, cancel, update, and ad-hoc charge subscriptions
Refund processing — create refunds (full or partial) and query refund status
Credit card queries — look up credit card transaction details
Sandbox support — defaults to sandbox mode for safe testing
Secure by design — credentials via environment variables only, sensitive data never logged

Available Tools

Tool	Description	Risk
`ping`	Test API connectivity	Low
`transaction_fetch`	Get transaction by ID	Low
`transaction_history`	Query transaction history	Low
`transaction_charge`	Charge a stored token	Medium
`subscription_fetch`	Get subscription details	Low
`subscription_pause`	Pause a subscription	High
`subscription_unpause`	Resume a subscription	Medium
`subscription_cancel`	Cancel a subscription	High
`subscription_update`	Update subscription terms	High
`subscription_adhoc`	Ad-hoc subscription charge	High
`refund_create`	Process a refund	High
`refund_fetch`	Get refund details	Low
`creditcard_fetch`	Query card transaction	Low

High-risk operations require human approval before execution.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

Node.js 18+
A PayFast merchant account (sandbox or production)

Installation

npm install -g payfast-mcp

Or run directly with npx:

npx payfast-mcp

Configuration

Set the following environment variables:

Variable	Required	Description
`PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID`	Yes	Your PayFast Merchant ID
`PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY`	Yes	Your PayFast Merchant Key
`PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE`	Yes	Your PayFast API Passphrase
`PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT`	No	`sandbox` (default) or `production`

You can also create a .env file in your working directory.

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "payfast": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "payfast-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID": "your-merchant-id",
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY": "your-merchant-key",
        "PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE": "your-passphrase",
        "PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code settings:

claude mcp add payfast \
  -e PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID=your-merchant-id \
  -e PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY=your-merchant-key \
  -e PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE=your-passphrase \
  -e PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT=sandbox \
  -- npx -y payfast-mcp

Cursor

Add to your Cursor MCP config (.cursor/mcp.json for project-level, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "payfast": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "payfast-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID": "your-merchant-id",
        "PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY": "your-merchant-key",
        "PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE": "your-passphrase",
        "PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Codex

Add via the Codex CLI:

codex mcp add payfast \
  --env PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID=your-merchant-id \
  --env PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY=your-merchant-key \
  --env PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE=your-passphrase \
  --env PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT=sandbox \
  -- npx -y payfast-mcp

Or add directly to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.payfast]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "payfast-mcp"]

[mcp_servers.payfast.env]
PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID = "your-merchant-id"
PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY = "your-merchant-key"
PAYFAST_PASSPHRASE = "your-passphrase"
PAYFAST_ENVIRONMENT = "sandbox"

Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/jpbester/payfast-mcp.git
cd payfast-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Run with MCP Inspector
npm run inspect

License

MIT

PayFast MCP Server