@open-and-async/mcp

Open and Async — MCP Server

Bring async-first working practices into your editor and AI assistant. This Model Context Protocol server gives your AI the tools to draft a decision doc, turn a meeting into an async artifact, pressure-test a status update, or settle a sync-vs-async debate — without leaving the tools you already work in.

It's the method from Open and Async — the collaborative software-development playbook for remote and distributed teams — as working tools, not reading.

What you can do with it

• Stop writing decision docs from a blank page. Hand your AI the decision and the options; get back a structured ADR scaffold — context, tradeoffs, the call, and how reversible it is.
• Turn "let's hop on a call" into an artifact. Give it a meeting's purpose and agenda; get the async equivalent with an owner and a deadline.
• Ship status updates that don't blindside anyone. Score a draft against the "work loudly / no surprises" rubric and get concrete fixes before you post it.
• Settle sync vs. async in seconds. Describe the task; get a recommendation and the rule behind it.
• Run a standup without a meeting. Drop in a structured async-standup template your team can adopt today.
• Win the "async is too slow" argument. Map common objections to a ready reframe, pull role-aware guidance, or search the book's principles — each answer cited and linked.

Install

Claude Code:

claude mcp add open-async -- npx -y @open-and-async/mcp

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-async": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@open-and-async/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Any MCP client that speaks stdio works the same way: run npx @open-and-async/mcp.

The toolbox

Method tools — pure utility, use them on any project

Tool	What it does
draft_decision_doc	Decision + options → a structured ADR/decision-doc scaffold (context, options, tradeoffs, decision, reversibility).
convert_meeting_to_async	Meeting purpose/agenda → the async equivalent (artifact, owner, deadline).
score_status_update	Scores a draft update against the "work loudly / no surprises" rubric and suggests fixes.
run_async_standup	A structured async-standup template a team can adopt.
triage_sync_vs_async	Recommends sync vs async for a task, with the decision rule.

Reference tools — the book's thinking, on demand

Tool	What it does
book_outline	Sections + chapters + one-line TL;DRs. The map.
get_chapter_summary	A chapter's TL;DR + taglines + read-the-chapter link.
search_principles	Keyword search over the summary corpus; short cited snippets.
handle_objection	Maps skepticism ("async is slow") to the book's reframe.
get_guidance	Role-aware (manager/ic) guidance for a topic.
get_taglines	Taglines + their /q/<slug> quote-card URLs.

Resources

• book://outline — sections, chapters, TL;DRs (JSON)
• book://taglines — taglines + quote-card URLs (JSON)

Prompts

Parameterized templates you invoke directly from your client: async-standup, write-adr, meeting-to-issue, weekly-update.

Good to know

It's a real tool, not a paywall. The method tools work on their own — no book required. The reference tools answer from the book's already-public summaries and a paraphrased framework layer, always capped, always cited, always linked back so you can go deeper. No verbatim book prose is bundled (the only data file is data/book.json), so what you install is genuinely useful, not a teaser.

Staying current. data/book.json ships with a version that tracks the book's edition, so the server can tell you which edition it's based on and re-sync when a new one lands.

Licensing

This package is split-licensed — see LICENSE for the overview:

• Code (everything under src/) — MIT.
• Data (data/book.json) — proprietary; © Open & Async LLC. You may use it only as part of running this software. No redistribution as a standalone dataset, no derivative datasets, no model training. See DATA-LICENSE.md.

The full work — the stories, the voice, the complete argument — lives in the book: open-and-async.com.