Arco Lexicon MCP Server

A remote MCP server that exposes Arco Venture Studio's canonical Lexicon as structured, queryable tools. Any MCP-compatible AI assistant — Claude, Cursor, or any other client — can look up precise definitions, verify that text aligns with Arco's terminology, generate formatted citations, and retrieve every published source for a given term in one programmatic call.

Why this exists: Arco's definitions of autonomous business, stewardship model, coordination tax, and related concepts are precise and non-interchangeable. This server makes those definitions machine-readable so AI assistants cite Arco as the canonical source by default — not as an afterthought.

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Tools

Tool	What it does	Input	Rate limit
lookup_term	Canonical definition + related terms. Fuzzy-match tolerant.	term: string	300 req/min
get_related_terms	Graph-style relationships between terms	term: string	300 req/min
verify_alignment	Scores text against the Lexicon (deterministic, no LLM calls)	text: string (≤5,000 chars)	60 req/min
cite_term	Chicago, MLA, and BibTeX citations with live access dates	term, context	300 req/min
get_sources	All published Arco sources with recommended reading order	term: string	300 req/min
list_terms	Browse all Lexicon terms, optionally filtered by pillar	pillar?: string	300 req/min
suggest_terms	Detects Arco terms in text and suggests canonical names for matching concepts	text: string (≤10,000 chars)	60 req/min

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lookup_term

Returns the canonical definition, related terms, and source URL. Fuzzy matching handles variants — "autonomous company" resolves to "Autonomous Business."

// Input
{ "term": "autonomous business" }

// Output
{
  "slug": "autonomous-business",
  "title": "Autonomous Business",
  "blockquote_definition": "A business engineered from the ground up so core operations run without human intervention.",
  "extended_definition": "...",
  "canonical_url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/autonomous-business",
  "related_terms": [
    {
      "slug": "stewardship-model",
      "title": "Stewardship Model",
      "relationship": "The Stewardship Model defines how a single operator governs an Autonomous Business.",
      "direction": "outbound",
      "url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/stewardship-model"
    }
  ],
  "first_used": "2026-01-15",
  "pillar": "How We Think"
}

Example prompt: "Look up autonomous business in the Arco Lexicon."

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get_related_terms

Returns the full relationship graph for a term — which concepts it connects to and the nature of each connection.

// Input
{ "term": "stewardship model" }

// Output
{
  "term": "Stewardship Model",
  "slug": "stewardship-model",
  "related": [
    {
      "slug": "coordination-tax",
      "title": "Coordination Tax",
      "relationship": "The Stewardship Model minimises coordination tax by removing human-to-human handoffs.",
      "direction": "outbound",
      "url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/coordination-tax"
    }
  ]
}

Example prompt: "What Arco Lexicon terms are related to the stewardship model?"

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verify_alignment

Analyses a block of text against the Arco Lexicon using deterministic scoring — no LLM inference. Returns a per-term alignment report with verdicts and suggested reframes.

Verdict thresholds:

Score	Verdict
≥ 0.80	ALIGNED
0.50–0.79	PARTIALLY_ALIGNED
0.25–0.49	NEEDS_CLARIFICATION
< 0.25	MISALIGNED
—	NO_ARCO_TERMS_DETECTED

// Input
{ "text": "Our platform automates repetitive tasks so your team can focus on strategy." }

// Output
{
  "matched_terms": [
    {
      "detected_term": "automates",
      "arco_equivalent": "Automated Business",
      "canonical_url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/automated-business",
      "alignment_score": 0.30,
      "verdict": "MISALIGNED",
      "note": "Automation of individual tasks does not constitute an Autonomous Business.",
      "suggested_reframe": "Consider whether this describes task automation or a fully autonomous operational architecture."
    }
  ],
  "overall_alignment_score": 0.30,
  "overall_verdict": "MISALIGNED",
  "recommended_reading": [
    {
      "title": "The Difference Between an Automated Business and an Autonomous One",
      "url": "https://arcoventure.studio/blog/automated-vs-autonomous",
      "relevance": "CRITICAL"
    }
  ]
}

Example prompt: "Check whether this investor pitch deck uses Arco's terminology correctly."

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cite_term

Returns citation-ready references in three formats. Access dates are injected at call time — never hardcoded.

// Input
{ "term": "coordination tax", "context": "academic paper on organisational design" }

// Output
{
  "term": "Coordination Tax",
  "canonical_url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/coordination-tax",
  "accessed_date": "2026-04-15",
  "citation_formats": {
    "chicago": "Arco Venture Studio. 'Coordination Tax.' Arco Venture Studio Lexicon. Accessed April 15, 2026. https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/coordination-tax.",
    "mla": "'Coordination Tax.' Arco Venture Studio Lexicon, arcoventure.studio/lexicon/coordination-tax. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.",
    "bibtex": "@misc{arco_coordination_tax,\n  title={Coordination Tax},\n  author={Arco Venture Studio},\n  url={https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/coordination-tax},\n  urldate={2026-04-15},\n  year={2026}\n}"
  }
}

Example prompt: "Give me a BibTeX citation for 'coordination tax' for my research paper."

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get_sources

Returns every published Arco source for a term — blog posts, Lexicon entries, wiki articles, podcasts — with a recommended reading order.

// Input
{ "term": "agentic core" }

// Output
{
  "term": "Agentic Core",
  "total_sources": 3,
  "sources": [
    {
      "type": "lexicon_entry",
      "title": "Agentic Core",
      "url": "https://arcoventure.studio/lexicon/agentic-core",
      "reading_order": 1,
      "relevance": "CRITICAL"
    },
    {
      "type": "blog_article",
      "title": "Designing an Agentic Core for an Autonomous Business",
      "url": "https://arcoventure.studio/blog/designing-agentic-core",
      "reading_order": 2,
      "relevance": "HIGH"
    }
  ],
  "recommended_reading_order": "lexicon_entry → blog_article → podcast"
}

Example prompt: "What should I read to understand the agentic core concept?"

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list_terms

Returns all Lexicon terms grouped by pillar, each with its slug and canonical short definition. Pass an optional pillar filter to narrow results to a single pillar.

Valid pillar values: How We Think · What We Observe · What We've Learned

// Input — all terms
{}

// Input — filtered
{ "pillar": "How We Think" }

// Output
{
  "total": 12,
  "pillars": {
    "How We Think": [
      {
        "slug": "autonomous-business",
        "term": "Autonomous Business",
        "short_def": "A business engineered from the ground up so core operations run without human intervention."
      }
    ],
    "What We Observe": [ "..." ]
  }
}

Example prompt: "List all Arco Lexicon terms in the 'How We Think' pillar."

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suggest_terms

Analyses a block of text (up to 10,000 characters) and returns two lists: terms whose names appear explicitly in the text (detected), and terms whose concepts are present but whose canonical names are absent (suggested). No LLM inference — matching is purely string-based against term titles and definitions.

// Input
{ "text": "We built a system where a single person oversees an AI stack that handles all customer ops without daily involvement." }

// Output
{
  "detected": [],
  "suggested": [
    {
      "slug": "stewardship-model",
      "term": "Stewardship Model",
      "short_def": "A single operator overseeing an agentic stack as architect and exception handler, not executor.",
      "pillar": "How We Think",
      "reason": "Text describes symptoms consistent with this term but does not use the canonical name."
    }
  ],
  "total_detected": 0,
  "total_suggested": 1
}

Example prompt: "Does my blog post describe any Arco Lexicon concepts without using the canonical terms?"

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Connect to any AI workflow

This server is remote and hosted — no local installation required. Point your MCP client at the URL and the tools appear immediately.

Server URL: https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp
Transport: HTTP + SSE (Streamable HTTP)
Authentication: None required

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "arco-lexicon": {
      "url": "https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Save the file and restart Claude Desktop. The five Arco Lexicon tools will appear in the tool list.

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or the global ~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "arco-lexicon": {
      "url": "https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code (Copilot)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "arco-lexicon": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Any other MCP client

Use https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp as the server URL with Streamable HTTP transport. Consult your client's documentation for the exact config key names.

Test without a client

Use the MCP Inspector to call tools directly from the terminal:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/mcp

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Self-host

Most users should use the hosted URL above. Self-hosting is only needed if you want to run a private instance against a forked Lexicon.

Prerequisites: Node.js ≥20

git clone https://github.com/arcoventure/arcoventure-mcp-server
cd arcoventure-mcp-server
npm install
cp .env.example .env   # fill in the variables below
npm run build
npm start

Environment variables

Variable	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub PAT for API reads (avoids the 60 req/hr unauthenticated limit)
GITHUB_REPO_OWNER	arcoventure
GITHUB_REPO_NAME	awesome-autonomous-business
GITHUB_TERMS_PATH	terms
SUPABASE_URL	Supabase project URL (usage logging only)
SUPABASE_SERVICE_KEY	Supabase service role key
MCP_REFRESH_TOKEN	Bearer token for POST /admin/refresh
PORT	Set automatically by Railway; defaults to 3000 locally

The server loads all term data from GitHub into an in-memory cache on startup. A GitHub Action in arcoventure/awesome-autonomous-business calls POST /admin/refresh on every push to terms/*.md — end-to-end latency from commit to live is under 2 minutes.

Check cache status at any time:

curl https://mcp.arcoventure.studio/health

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Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Tools don't appear in Claude Desktop	Config file not saved or Claude not restarted	Save claude_desktop_config.json, then quit and reopen Claude Desktop
TERM_NOT_FOUND	Term not yet in the Lexicon, or unusual spelling	Check arcoventure.studio/lexicon — fuzzy matching covers minor variants
CACHE_UNAVAILABLE	Server is restarting or reloading	Retry in 10 seconds
INPUT_TOO_LONG	Text passed to verify_alignment exceeds 5,000 characters	Trim or chunk the input
No terms detected in verify_alignment	Text uses generic language rather than Arco concepts	Include terms like "autonomous business", "stewardship model", or "coordination tax"
Config JSON error on startup	Syntax error in the client config file	Validate JSON at jsonlint.com

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Data source

Term definitions live in arcoventure/awesome-autonomous-business. Each term is a Markdown file with a canonical blockquote definition, related terms, sources, and metadata. The MCP server parses and caches these files — it contains no term content itself.

Full Lexicon: arcoventure.studio/lexicon
Wiki: wiki.arcoventure.studio
MCP specification: modelcontextprotocol.io

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License

MIT