jtenoriodseldon/mcpblogdemo

3.1

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The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server is a framework designed to facilitate communication between clients and servers using a standardized protocol.

MCP BattleBots Demo

This repo accompanies the blog post:
👉 BattleBots + MCP = Fun: Building Custom Tools in C# That Your IDE and Workflows Understand

It demonstrates how to:

Build a C# BattleBots API (.NET 10).
Wrap it with an MCP server using the Microsoft MCP SDK.
Debug with MCP Inspector.
Integrate with Visual Studio Insiders / VS Code Insiders.
Automate workflows using n8n + Ollama.

Prerequisites

.NET 10 SDK
Visual Studio Insiders or VS Code Insiders
MCP Inspector
n8n running locally or in Docker
Ollama with llama3.1:8b model installed

Projects

1. BattleBots API

A minimal API returning competitor names.

Run the API:

Navigate to BattleBots.Api
Execute dotnet run

API will start at:
http://localhost:5000/battlebots

2. BattleBots MCP Server

Wraps the API as an MCP tool (list-battlebots).

Run the server:

Navigate to BattleBots.Mcp
Execute dotnet run

MCP server will start at:
http://localhost:3001/mcp

Environment Variables:

BATTLEBOTS_API_BASE → defaults to http://localhost:5000
BATTLEBOTS_API_LIST_PATH → defaults to /battlebots

The magic is in the [McpServerTool] attribute, which makes the method discoverable as an MCP tool by clients like VS Code, Inspector, and n8n.

3. MCP Inspector

Run to test/debug your MCP server:

Execute: npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
Open: http://localhost:6274
Connect to: http://localhost:3001/

You’ll see the list-battlebots tool and can invoke it directly.

4. VS Code / Visual Studio Insiders

Create a .mcp.json file (in %USERPROFILE% or solution root) with the following content:

{ "servers": { "battlebots": { "type": "http", "url": "http://localhost:3001/ " } } }

Open the MCP tools panel in VS Code Insiders or Visual Studio Insiders, and you’ll find the list-battlebots tool available.

5. n8n Workflow

Import the provided MCP Sample.json into n8n.

Workflow nodes:

Trigger → When chat message received
Ollama → llama3.1:8b reasoning
AI Agent → routes requests to MCP tool
MCP battlebots tool → fetches competitor names

Examples:

Filter bots by letter (s)
The workflow will only return competitor names starting with s.
Order & count
The workflow can order names alphabetically and count the number of characters in each name.