MCP Bridge Patterns

Recurring patterns for building MCP servers that bridge Claude Desktop to Hermes Agent. v2.0: HTTP Bridge replaces subprocess spawning.

When to Use

• Building a new MCP bridge (Node.js, stdio transport)
• Debugging "MCP error -32001" or socket hang up from Hermes Gateway API
• Adding tools to an existing MCP server
• Routing tasks to Kanban boards based on project path

Pattern 1: HTTP Bridge (v2.0)

Problem: spawn("hermes chat -q") is slow, fragile, and fails in Claude Desktop because MCP stdio servers inherit a limited subset of PATH. hermes binary is not available.

Solution: HTTP POST to Hermes Gateway API. Zero subprocess. Retry logic handles transient failures.