Pleso Therapy — MCP server

A universal Model Context Protocol server that lets any AI assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Cursor… — help people find a Pleso therapist for their concerns.

• Live endpoint: https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp (Firebase App Hosting, project product-team-products, backend pleso-mcp; Streamable HTTP, no auth, read-only)
• Public pages (same host): /docs (setup guide), /privacy (connector privacy notice, noindex), /logo.png, /robots.txt. Source: src/pages.ts
• Local: npx @pleso/mcp-server (stdio)
• Data: Pleso's public therapist catalog (same data as pleso.me/{region}/therapists/all), cached 30 min
• Privacy: no accounts, no cookies, no storage; search terms are never logged

Tools

Tool	What it does
search_therapists	Ranks therapists by how strongly they work with up to 5 concerns ("anxiety", "burnout", "breakup", or codes). Filters: region, individual/couple, therapist gender/age, language; preferred methods & client groups boost ranking. Returns match score, why they match, bio excerpt, photo, intro video, profile/booking link.
list_concerns	Concerns, methods, client groups and languages available per region (codes + English/local labels).
get_therapist_profile	Full public profile: bio, education, specialties by level, methods, client groups, languages, price.
get_pleso_info	How Pleso works, regions, therapist counts, live starting prices, quiz/catalog links.
get_crisis_resources	Emergency numbers + crisis lines (UA, PL, RO, GB, IE, US, CA, DE) with findahelpline.com fallback.

Plus a find_a_therapist prompt. All tools are annotated readOnlyHint: true, destructiveHint: false, openWorldHint: false.

Regions = therapy language: en (English, worldwide · individual), ua (Ukrainian · individual + couple), pl (Polish · individual + couple), ro (Romanian · individual). Each region has its own concern taxonomy; English terms are matched against all of them.

How matching works: each Pleso therapist publishes a 1–5 level for each concern. The score is the mean level across the requested concerns (0–100), minus a penalty for any concern below "experienced" (3), plus small bonuses for preferred methods / client groups. Ties break on years of experience. No paid placement.

Develop

npm install
npm test            # unit + in-memory MCP tests (no network)
npm run dev         # http://localhost:8080/mcp
node scripts/smoke.mjs http://localhost:8080/mcp   # live end-to-end check against pleso.me
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector              # interactive testing

Env vars: PORT (8080), CATALOG_TTL_SECONDS (1800), CATALOG_MAX_ROUNDS (6), WARM_UP (true), PLESO_BASE_URL (https://pleso.me), OPENAI_APPS_CHALLENGE (ChatGPT domain-verification token).

Deploy (Firebase App Hosting — Product Team - Products)

Deployed from local source (no GitHub link needed), same as the care-roster backend in that project:

npm test
firebase deploy --only apphosting:pleso-mcp --project product-team-products
node scripts/smoke.mjs https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp

• Runtime settings live in apphosting.yaml (1 always-on instance, max 4, 1 vCPU, 512 MiB).
• On startup the server loads the whole catalog before accepting traffic (max 90 s, WARM_UP_MAX_SECONDS), so a new rollout keeps the old revision serving until the new one is warm. After that, expired data is served instantly while it refreshes in the background — users never wait on pleso.me.
• Health check: GET /health (/healthz is reserved by Google's edge on App Hosting/Cloud Run).
• Logs: Firebase console → App Hosting → pleso-mcp → Logs (or Cloud Logging, service pleso-mcp).
• No custom domain (decided 2026-11-12). Every listing uses the Firebase URL above. Never delete or move the pleso-mcp backend: the URL is tied to it, so a move breaks every installed connector and listing. If a move is ever needed, add a custom domain first, then update the listings.

A Dockerfile is also included for any other container host.

Connect it

Client	How
Claude (web/desktop/mobile)	Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp
ChatGPT	Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced → Developer mode → Create → URL https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp, auth: none
Perplexity	Settings → Connectors / Plugins → Add custom → MCP connector → URL, auth: none
Gemini CLI	gemini extensions install https://github.com/<org>/pleso-mcp (uses gemini-extension.json)
Claude Code	claude mcp add --transport http pleso https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp
VS Code / Cursor	{"servers":{"pleso":{"type":"http","url":"https://pleso-mcp--product-team-products.europe-west4.hosted.app/mcp"}}}
Claude Desktop (local)	{"mcpServers":{"pleso":{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@pleso/mcp-server"]}}}

Publish to marketplaces

See docs/PUBLISHING.md — step-by-step for the Claude Connectors Directory, ChatGPT app directory, MCP Registry (→ VS Code/GitHub), Gemini CLI gallery, Perplexity, Smithery, Glama, mcp.so — with ready-to-paste listing copy, example prompts and test cases. Privacy policy draft: docs/PRIVACY.md.

Crisis resources

src/crisis.ts was checked on 2026-11-11. Re-verify every number before each release — hours are deliberately omitted because sources disagree. findahelpline.com is always returned as a fallback.

Known limitations / roadmap

1. Data source is the public catalog HTML. pleso.me's default sort is partly randomised, so the loader re-reads pages until it has everyone (currently ~99%: en 49/50, ua 257/259, pl 163/163, ro 85/85). Ask the backend team for a stable JSON endpoint (e.g. GET /api/public/catalog?region=en) and implement it as another CatalogSource in src/catalog.ts — no other code changes needed.
2. No live availability / next free slot yet — a natural next tool once the backend exposes it.
3. Booking stays on pleso.me (no OAuth). If in-chat booking is ever wanted, it needs OAuth 2.1 + a separate review.