Refract Group2026
MCP server development
Let AI assistants use your product with a person’s permissions.
An MCP server lets an AI assistant read and act on your product through a short list of named actions. We choose the actions with you, build the server and test it. The scope, price and timeline are agreed before we start.
A short list of actions, run as the user
A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server tells an AI assistant which actions it may take in your product and runs each one with the permissions of the person who asked. On 15 November 2026 the protocol’s own documentation named Claude and ChatGPT among the assistants that support it. Our studio is in Sydney, Australia, and we work between Sydney and New York with SaaS companies.
The few things worth letting an assistant do in your product, each named and described in plain words.
Every action runs as the user who asked. It can read and change what that user could in the product itself, and no more.
Each call is logged against the user who made it. Access is built to be turned off quickly when something looks wrong.
The questions your users would ask, put to each assistant in the scope before launch. Where one guesses, we fix the action or its description.
In short
What you get
An MCP server in your accounts. It offers a short list of actions in your product, runs each with the asking user’s permissions and logs every call. The test questions and the documentation come with it.
What it costs
The project is scoped with you and its price settled before it starts. The usual first step is a single week for $2,500, credited in full against a build that begins within 60 days.
How long it takes
The timeline is agreed before work starts. It depends on how many actions the server offers, how sign-in and permissions work in your product and which assistants it is tested with. The first step takes one week.
When it’s not a fit
No customer is asking to use your product through an assistant, the rules for who may do what in it are unsettled, or what you want is an assistant inside your own product.
How the work runs
Decide the actions
With your product and engineering leads we list what customers would ask an assistant to do, then choose the first few actions.
Write each one
Every action gets a name, a description, its inputs and what it returns. The assistant chooses by reading that wording.
Build on your API
The server calls the API you already have and follows your product’s own sign-in and permissions. Where you have engineers, they review the code before it merges.
Test before launch
We put your users’ questions to each assistant in the scope and correct every action it chose wrongly or guessed at.
Launch and keep current
The code and its documentation go into your accounts. Before launch we agree who updates the server when the protocol or your product changes.
Where it leads
Questions about MCP servers
Because an assistant can’t use an API the way a developer does. A developer reads the documentation once and writes code against it. An assistant has to work out, partway through a conversation, which action fits what someone just asked. An MCP server hands it a short described list in place of your whole API. It sits on top of the API and replaces none of it. Until a customer asks for this, you can leave it.
It should work with any assistant that supports the protocol, and we test it with the ones named in your scope. The protocol’s documentation, as we read it on 15 November 2026, listed Claude and ChatGPT as assistants that support it, and Visual Studio Code and Cursor among the development tools. We test each one separately: the same questions go to each, and we reword an action where one of them picks wrongly.
It can be, and that depends on the permissions more than on the protocol. We build each action to run as the user who asked, so it can do only what that user could do in the product. Every call is logged and access can be switched off. The specification, as its documentation stood on 15 November 2026, leaves authorisation optional, so the care has to come from the build. Testing lowers the chance of an assistant misreading a request and cannot remove it.
It depends on the scope, and the price is settled before the project starts. The usual first step is one week of work for $2,500, in which we decide with you which actions an assistant should have and what each may touch. If the build begins within 60 days, the whole $2,500 is taken off its price.
We agree the timeline before work starts. It depends on three things: how many actions the server offers, how sign-in and permissions work in your product, and which assistants it has to be tested with. A first week of work settles the list of actions, so the timeline that follows rests on a decided scope.
A working MCP server in your own accounts, with its code and documentation. That includes the actions and the wording of each, permissions tied to the user who asked, a log of every call and a way to switch access off. The test questions come too, so your engineers can run them again after a change.
Three things: your API and its documentation, a test environment with sample accounts, and time with whoever knows how sign-in and permissions work. We work in your repository and through your code review, so your engineers have read the server before it goes live.
Whoever you choose, and we agree it before launch. We can keep looking after the server, or your engineers can with the documentation we leave. It needs an owner either way, because the protocol is still being revised: on 15 November 2026 its documentation gave 28 July 2026 as the date of the current revision. Your product changes too, and an action describing an old feature can mislead an assistant.
Yes. Our studio is in Sydney, Australia, and MCP server development is part of our engineering service. We build the server so an assistant can read and act on your product with the permissions a person would have. The people who design here also build, which helps when much of the work is naming and describing actions. We usually work with companies that have raised a seed or Series A round.
A closer look at the work
- An AI design system puts your brand to workGive an AI agent the brand assets, examples and working methods it needs to turn a real brief into work your team can review and use.
- How to get your company cited by ChatGPT and AI searchNobody can guarantee an AI citation. You raise the odds with pages that answer questions directly, crawlers let in, and one consistent description of you.
- Designing complex SaaS workflows: lessons from KeeyuHow relationships, progress and contextual guidance shape a usable product, and how to apply those lessons to your next difficult workflow.
Do customers want your product inside their assistant?
Tell us what your product does and what customers would ask an assistant to do in it. We’ll say which actions we’d begin with.
Most teams start with a call, then a sprint or an audit.
The people you’d work with, from the first call to launch