Unofficial Polarsteps MCP Server for API Access

Overview

This project provides an unofficial MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes Polarsteps data through a lightweight HTTP API. It acts as a bridge between Polarsteps and applications or models that consume MCP-style tool endpoints, allowing models and apps to read user trips, stories, photos and profile data without embedding complex Polarsteps API logic.

The server is useful for developers building assistants, model integrations, or dashboard apps that need to include travel context from Polarsteps. By centralizing authentication, caching and endpoint semantics, the MCP server simplifies how clients request and incorporate Polarsteps data into prompts, retrieval layers, or UIs.

Features

• Exposes Polarsteps data (user profile, trips, trip details, stories, photos) through simple REST endpoints
• Implements MCP-style tool endpoints to integrate with models and retrieval systems
• Configurable credentials/authentication for Polarsteps access
• Optional Docker deployment and environment-based configuration
• Lightweight and easy to self-host; minimal dependencies
• Works as a proxy so clients never need direct access to Polarsteps credentials

Installation / Configuration

Clone, install dependencies, and configure environment variables.

1. Clone and install (Node.js example)

git clone https://github.com/remuzel/polarsteps-mcp.git
cd polarsteps-mcp
npm install

2. Create a .env file (example)

PORT=3000
POLARSTEPS_AUTH_TOKEN=your_polarsteps_token_here
CACHE_TTL_SECONDS=60
LOG_LEVEL=info

3. Run locally

npm start
# or for development
npm run dev

4. Docker

# Dockerfile (example)
FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production
COPY . .
CMD ["node", "index.js"]

Build and run:

docker build -t polarsteps-mcp .
docker run -e POLARSTEPS_AUTH_TOKEN=xxx -p 3000:3000 polarsteps-mcp

Configuration options you will commonly edit:

• POLARSTEPS_AUTH_TOKEN or POLARSTEPS_COOKIE — credentials used to access Polarsteps
• PORT — HTTP port for the MCP server
• CACHE_TTL_SECONDS — how long to cache remote responses

Note: This server is unofficial. Be careful with credential handling and respect Polarsteps terms of service.

Available Resources

The server exposes a set of tools/resources that are useful when integrating travel data into models or apps. Typical endpoints include:

Example curl usage:

# List trips
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $YOUR_TOKEN" http://localhost:3000/api/trips

# Get trip details
curl http://localhost:3000/api/trips/abcd1234

For model integrations, you can treat each endpoint as an MCP tool: the model can request a tool like “trip-details” and the server will return structured JSON suitable for context augmentation.

Use Cases

• Model-assisted travel assistant: A conversational agent can fetch a user’s recent trip summary or trip itinerary to answer questions like “Where did I travel last month?” or “What were the highlights of my Norway trip?” without storing Polarsteps credentials in the model.
• Context augmentation for generation: Before producing itinerary suggestions or travel summaries, a model retrieves the user’s polarsteps trip entries and photos to ground output in real past activity.
• Travel dashboard and export: A web app can periodically pull trip, story, and photo data into local storage (or a business intelligence pipeline) for aggregated reporting, offline export, or migration.
• Privacy-preserving access: Apps that need to access Polarsteps data for a single feature can rely on this proxy so your front-end never directly touches the Polarsteps credentials.

Notes & Best Practices

• This server is an unofficial adapter: Polarsteps may change their internal APIs. Expect intermittent breakage and audit requests when upgrading.
• Cache responses where possible to limit calls and reduce latency; configure CACHE_TTL_SECONDS to a suitable value for your workload.
• Secure credentials: store POLARSTEPS_AUTH_TOKEN in secrets managers when deploying to production and run the service over HTTPS.
• Respect rate limits and terms of service for Polarsteps; use this server for personal or permitted integrations.

If you need to extend functionality, add endpoints that mirror other Polarsteps resources and include robust error handling for token expiration and network errors.