As Help MCP

🚀 AS Help MCP Server

The MCP server for searching B&R Automation Studio help documentation. It offers full - text search across all help pages using SQLite FTS5 with BM25 ranking.

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Install B&R Automation Studio (with help documentation).
• Install and run Docker Desktop.
• Install VS Code with the GitHub Copilot extension.

Demo

Check the demo here

Quick Start in VS Code

Add the following to .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace:

Option 1: Docker (Recommended)

{
  "servers": {
    "as-help": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "--rm", "-i",
        "-v", "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BRAutomation\\AS6\\Help-en\\Data:/data/help:ro",
        "-v", "ashelp-data:/data/db",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_VERSION=6",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_FORCE_REBUILD=false",
        "ghcr.io/brdk-public/as-help-mcp:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Update the volume path to match your AS installation:

• AS 4.x: C:\\BRAutomation\\AS412\\Help-en\\Data:/data/help:ro
• AS 6.x: C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BRAutomation\\AS6\\Help-en\\Data:/data/help:ro
• AS 6.x in WSL: /mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/BRAutomation/AS6/Help-en/Data:/data/help:ro

Option 2: UV (Local Development)

{
  "servers": {
    "as-help": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--directory",
        "/path/to/as-help-mcp",
        "as-help-server",
        "--help-root",
        "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BRAutomation\\AS6\\Help-en\\Data",
        "--db-path",
        "..\\data\\as6\\.ashelp\\search.db",
        "--metadata-dir",
        "..\\data\\as6\\.ashelp_metadata",
        "--as-version",
        "6"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Update --directory to point to your cloned repository and adjust paths as needed.

Restart VS Code, then test in Copilot Chat: "Search AS help for mapp Motion"

The first run takes 5 - 10 minutes to build the search index. Subsequent starts are instant.

✨ Features

• Full - text search with BM25 ranking
• Category filtering and hierarchical browsing
• Auto - generated links to B&R online help (AS4/AS6)
• HelpID lookup for context - sensitive help integration
• Auto - reindex on changes in the help directory via MD5 hash
• Parallel indexing with multiple threads

📦 Installation

Local Development Setup

Option 1: UV (Recommended)

# Clone and install
git clone <repository-url>
cd as-help
uv sync --extra test --extra dev

# Run server with command line arguments (precedence over .env)
uv run as-help-server --help-root "C:\BRAutomation\AS412\Help-en\Data" --db-path "data\.ashelp\search.db" --metadata-dir "data\.ashelp_metadata"

# Or use relative paths (automatically resolved)
uv run as-help-server --db-path ./data/ashelp.db --metadata-dir ./data

Option 2: Environment Variables (.env)

You can also create a .env file in the root directory. Command - line arguments will override these values if provided.

AS_HELP_ROOT=C:\Program Files (x86)\BRAutomation\AS6\Help-en\Data
AS_HELP_VERSION=6

CLI Arguments

Run uv run as-help-server --help for full details.

Option 3: Docker Compose

# Local build
docker compose build

# Run with your help files mounted
docker compose run --rm \
  -v "C:\Program Files (x86)\BRAutomation\AS6\Help-en\Data:/data/help:ro" \
  as-help-local

Testing with MCP Inspector

The MCP Inspector provides a web UI for testing tools and prompts:

# With UV
uv run mcp dev src/server.py

# Opens browser at http://localhost:5173

Note: On Windows, use VS Code's Run and Debug panel instead (stdio transport issues with Inspector).

VS Code Debugging

Use the launch configurations in .vscode/launch.json:

1. Rebuild BR Help Index - First run to build index
2. Run BR Help MCP Server - Normal server startup
3. Test BR Help Indexer - Quick XML parse test

📚 Documentation

Environment Variables & CLI Arguments

The server supports configuration via both environment variables and command - line arguments. CLI arguments take precedence. Relative paths are automatically resolved to absolute paths.

Tools

Prompts

Resources

Multiple AS Versions

{
  "servers": {
    "as-help-4": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "--rm", "-i",
        "-v", "C:\\BRAutomation\\AS412\\Help-en\\Data:/data/help:ro",
        "-v", "ashelp-data-4:/data/db",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_VERSION=4",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_FORCE_REBUILD=false",
        "ghcr.io/brdk-public/as-help-mcp:latest"
      ]
    },
    "as-help-6": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "--rm", "-i",
        "-v", "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BRAutomation\\AS6\\Help-en\\Data:/data/help:ro",
        "-v", "ashelp-data-6:/data/db",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_VERSION=6",
        "-e", "AS_HELP_FORCE_REBUILD=false",
        "ghcr.io/brdk-public/as-help-mcp:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}