How do I install Adaptive Cards?

Copy the stdio config for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or VS Code on this page. It uses the publisher's install, not a PlugMCP proxy.

Does Adaptive Cards need an API key?

No required environment variable is listed on this record.

What transport does Adaptive Cards use?

Adaptive Cards runs locally over stdio.

When was Adaptive Cards last checked?

Last checked 2026-11-09. Generate, validate, and optimize Adaptive Cards for Teams, Outlook, and Copilot.

Adaptive Cards MCP server

Adaptive Cards MCP

An MCP server that helps AI assistants generate valid, accessible Adaptive Cards for Teams, Outlook, Copilot, and other Microsoft surfaces. 9 tools, 3 guided workflows, 924 tests.

Blog: I Built an MCP Server That Makes AI 10x Better at Adaptive Cards

Demo

Quick Start

No install needed — npx downloads and runs it automatically.

1. Add to your AI assistant

claude mcp add adaptive-cards-mcp -- npx adaptive-cards-mcp

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "adaptive-cards-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adaptive-cards-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adaptive-cards-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["adaptive-cards-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

TRANSPORT=sse PORT=3001 npx adaptive-cards-mcp

# With auth enabled
TRANSPORT=sse MCP_API_KEY=your-secret npx adaptive-cards-mcp

Open Copilot Studio → your agent → Tools → Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol
Enter your MCP server URL (e.g., https://your-server.azurewebsites.net/sse)
Select the tools to expose

Enable Developer mode in ChatGPT settings
Go to Settings → Connectors → Create
Enter your MCP server HTTPS URL

2. Start using it

Just ask your AI assistant in natural language:

> Create an expense approval card for Teams

> Convert this JSON data into an Adaptive Card table

> Validate this card and fix accessibility issues

> Make this card work on Outlook (v1.4)

The AI picks the right tools, generates a valid card, validates it, and returns production-ready JSON you can paste directly into the Adaptive Cards Designer to preview.

Usage

Natural language (recommended)

Describe what you need — the AI figures out which tools to call:

Approvals and workflows:

> Create an expense approval card for Teams with requester photo, amount,
  category, line items, and approve/reject/comment buttons

> Build a time-off request card — employee name, dates, remaining PTO balance,
  manager approval with optional rejection reason

Notifications and alerts:

> Create a CI/CD deployment notification: service name, environment, build number,
  commit SHA, deploy status with rollback button

> Generate a PagerDuty-style incident alert card — severity P1, affected service,
  start time, on-call engineer, acknowledge/escalate actions

Data and reports:

> Here's our Q1 sales data, turn it into a card:
  [{"region":"APAC","revenue":1250000,"growth":"12%"},
   {"region":"EMEA","revenue":980000,"growth":"8%"},
   {"region":"Americas","revenue":2100000,"growth":"15%"}]

> Convert this CSV to a card:
  Employee,Department,Start Date,Status
  Jane Kim,Engineering,2026-01-15,Active
  Bob Lee,Design,2026-02-01,Active
  Carol Wu,PM,2026-03-10,Onboarding

Forms and input:

> Create an employee onboarding checklist — new hire name, start date,
  assigned buddy, IT setup tasks with checkboxes, and a submit button

> Build a customer feedback survey card with a 1-5 star rating,
  comment field, and NPS score dropdown

Profiles and status:

> Create a team member profile card with photo, name, title, department,
  skills tags, and contact buttons for email/chat/calendar

> Build a service health dashboard card showing 5 microservices
  with status indicators (healthy/degraded/down) and last check time

Cross-host and versioning:

> This card works in Teams but breaks in Outlook — fix it
> Make this card work on Webex (v1.3 only, no Table, no Action.Execute)
> Downgrade this v1.6 card to v1.4 for Viva Connections

Validation and optimization:

> Validate this card and tell me what's wrong — I'm getting render errors
> Make this card accessible — it needs to work with screen readers
> This card is too complex, optimize it for performance and compact layout

What you say	What the AI calls
"Create a leave approval card for Teams"	`generate_and_validate` → optimized card with Approve/Reject actions
"Here's my API response, make it a card"	`data_to_card` → auto-picks Table/FactSet/List based on data shape
"Is this card valid for Outlook?"	`validate_card` → schema errors, accessibility score, host compatibility
"Make this card accessible"	`optimize_card` → adds wrap, altText, speak, heading styles
"Convert this card to a reusable template"	`template_card` → static values become `${expression}` bindings
"This card needs to work on v1.3"	`transform_card` → downgrades, removes unsupported features
"What layout should I use for a dashboard?"	`suggest_layout` → pattern recommendation with rationale

Slash commands (MCP prompts)

For guided, multi-step workflows, use the built-in prompts directly:

Create a card:

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
  description: "Expense approval with requester photo, line items table, total amount,
                and approve/reject buttons with comment field"
  host: teams
  intent: approval

Runs: generate → validate → optimize → host config

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
  description: "CI/CD deployment notification with service name, environment,
                build number, status badge, and rollback action"
  host: teams
  intent: notification

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card
  description: "Employee profile card with photo, name, title, department,
                contact info, and skills tags"
  host: outlook
  intent: profile

Convert data to a card:

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:convert-data-to-card
  data: [
    { "task": "Review PR #482", "assignee": "Jane", "due": "2026-03-21", "status": "pending" },
    { "task": "Deploy hotfix v2.1.3", "assignee": "Bob", "due": "2026-03-19", "status": "in-progress" },
    { "task": "Update API docs", "assignee": "Carol", "due": "2026-03-22", "status": "done" }
  ]
  title: "Sprint Tasks"
  presentation: table

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:convert-data-to-card
  data: { "service": "api-gateway", "cpu": "92%", "memory": "78%", "requests": "12.4k/min",
          "p99_latency": "245ms", "error_rate": "0.3%", "uptime": "99.97%" }
  title: "Service Health — api-gateway"
  presentation: facts

Runs: analyze data → pick best layout → validate output

Review an existing card:

> /adaptive-cards-mcp:review-adaptive-card
  card: { "type": "AdaptiveCard", "version": "1.6", "body": [...your card...] }
  host: outlook

Runs: validate schema + accessibility → auto-fix issues → summary report

npm library (programmatic)

For use in your own code (bots, APIs, CI pipelines), install the package:

npm install adaptive-cards-mcp

import { generateCard, validateCardFull, dataToCard, optimizeCard } from 'adaptive-cards-mcp';

const result = await generateCard({
  content: "Create a flight status card",
  host: "teams",
  intent: "display"
});

console.log(result.card);       // Adaptive Card JSON
console.log(result.cardId);     // Reference ID for subsequent calls
console.log(result.validation); // Schema + accessibility + host compat

See the Library API reference for full details.

What you get back

Card-producing tools return two clean blocks — card JSON you can copy, and a metadata summary:

```json
{
  "type": "AdaptiveCard",
  "version": "1.6",
  "body": [ ... ],
  "actions": [ ... ]
}
```

---

**Validation:** Valid
**Accessibility Score:** 100/100
**Elements:** 7 | **Nesting Depth:** 2 | **Version:** 1.6
**Card ID:** card-abc123
**Steps:** generate → validate → optimize
**Try it out:** Paste the card JSON into the [Adaptive Cards Designer](https://adaptivecards.microsoft.com/designer)
**Local Preview:** file:///tmp/ac-preview-xyz.html

Tools, Prompt and Usage

Reference

MCP Tools (9)

Tool	Description
`generate_card`	Natural language / data → valid Adaptive Card v1.6 JSON
`validate_card`	Schema validation + accessibility score + host compatibility + suggested fixes
`data_to_card`	Auto-select Table / FactSet / Chart / List from data shape
`optimize_card`	Improve accessibility, performance, modernize actions
`template_card`	Static card → `${expression}` data-bound template
`transform_card`	Version upgrade/downgrade, host-config adaptation
`suggest_layout`	Recommend best layout pattern for a description
`generate_and_validate`	Generate + validate + optionally optimize in one call
`card_workflow`	Multi-step pipeline: generate → optimize → template → transform

MCP Prompts (3)

Prompt	Pipeline	Slash command
`create-adaptive-card`	generate → validate → optimize → host config	`/adaptive-cards-mcp:create-adaptive-card`
`review-adaptive-card`	validate → auto-fix → before/after report	`/adaptive-cards-mcp:review-adaptive-card`
`convert-data-to-card`	analyze data → pick presentation → validate	`/adaptive-cards-mcp:convert-data-to-card`

MCP Resources (5) + Templates (2)

Resource	Description
`ac://schema/v1.6`	Complete JSON Schema for Adaptive Cards v1.6
`ac://hosts`	Host compatibility matrix for all 7 hosts
`ac://hosts/{hostName}`	Single host compatibility info
`ac://examples`	36 curated example cards catalog
`ac://examples/{intent}`	Examples filtered by intent
`ac://patterns`	21 canonical layout patterns
`ac://cards`	Session card store (cards by cardId)

Host Compatibility

Host	Max Version	Notes
Generic	1.6	Default — no host-specific constraints
Teams	1.6	Max 6 actions, Action.Execute preferred
Outlook	1.4	Limited elements, max 4 actions
Web Chat	1.6	Full support
Windows	1.6	Subset of elements
Viva Connections	1.4	SPFx-based ACE framework
Webex	1.3	No Table, no Action.Execute

Configuration

Environment Variable	Description	Default
`TRANSPORT`	Transport mode: `stdio` or `sse`	`stdio`
`PORT`	HTTP port for SSE transport	`3001`
`MCP_API_KEY`	API key for HTTP auth	(disabled)
`MCP_AUTH_MODE`	Auth mode: `bearer` for token validation	(disabled)
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Anthropic Claude API key	(deterministic mode)
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	OpenAI API key	(deterministic mode)
`AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY`	Azure OpenAI API key	(disabled)
`AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT`	Azure OpenAI endpoint URL	(disabled)
`OLLAMA_BASE_URL`	Ollama local model URL	(disabled)
`DEBUG`	Enable debug logging: `adaptive-cards-mcp`	(disabled)
`MCP_RATE_LIMIT`	Enable rate limiting: `true`	`false`
`MCP_TELEMETRY`	Enable telemetry: `true` to opt-in	`false`
`POSTHOG_API_KEY`	PostHog project API key for remote reporting	(disabled)
`POSTHOG_HOST`	PostHog API host	`https://eu.i.posthog.com`

Note: When used via MCP (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor), the host LLM provides the intelligence — no API key needed. Set an API key only for standalone/library usage.

Telemetry & Privacy

Telemetry is opt-in and disabled by default. When enabled, the server collects anonymous usage metrics and sends aggregated data to PostHog to help improve the project.

How to enable:

VS Code extension: A one-time consent prompt appears on first install. You can change it anytime in Settings → Adaptive Cards → Telemetry.
CLI / MCP server: Set MCP_TELEMETRY=true in your environment, or edit ~/.adaptive-cards-mcp/config.json and set "telemetry": true.

What is sent: Tool names, call counts, durations, error rates, platform (OS), Node version, package version, transport type.

What is never sent: Card content, user prompts, data payloads, IP addresses, file paths, environment variables.

A random session ID is generated each time the server starts — no persistent identifier is stored across sessions.

To disable: Set MCP_TELEMETRY=false or leave unconfigured (default is off).

Development

cd packages/core
npm install
npm run build         # TypeScript + copy data files
npm test              # 924 tests (vitest)
npm run test:coverage # With coverage report
npm run lint          # TypeScript type check
npm run lint:eslint   # ESLint check
npm run format        # Prettier formatting

Local Testing

Smoke test all tools and prompts:

./test-mcp-tools.sh --local     # 28 tests — all 9 tools with real-world scenarios
./test-mcp-prompts.sh --local   # 10 tests — all 3 prompts (guided workflows)
./test-mcp-tools.sh             # same tests against published npm package
./test-mcp-prompts.sh           # same tests against published npm package

MCP Inspector (visual UI):

cd packages/core && npm run build
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/server.js
# Opens http://localhost:6274 — pick a tool, enter params, click Run

Terminal (stdio):

cd packages/core
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"test","version":"1.0"}}}
{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"generate_card","arguments":{"content":"expense approval card","intent":"approval","host":"teams"}}}' \
  | node dist/server.js 2>/dev/null | tail -1 | python3 -m json.tool

SSE mode:

TRANSPORT=sse PORT=3001 node packages/core/dist/server.js
curl http://localhost:3001/health

Architecture

packages/core/src/
├── server.ts              # MCP server (stdio + SSE, 9 tools, 3 prompts)
├── index.ts               # Library exports
├── types/                 # TypeScript interfaces
├── core/                  # Schema validator, analyzer, accessibility, host compat
├── generation/            # 21 layout patterns, data analyzer, assembler, LLM client
├── tools/                 # 9 tool handlers
├── utils/                 # Logger, input guards, rate limiter, card store, auth, telemetry, preview
└── data/                  # v1.6 schema, 36 examples, host configs

Ecosystem

Package	Description
packages/core	MCP server + npm library (9 tools) — npm
packages/vscode-extension	VS Code extension — adaptive-cards-ai-vscode

What's New in v2.3.0

Accessibility 100/100 — All generated cards now include speak property automatically
No more broken JSON — Newlines in content sanitized, titles no longer truncate at version numbers
Host-aware generation — generate_and_validate auto-downgrades card version for Outlook (v1.4), Webex (v1.3)
CSV fix — CSV data correctly parsed before building FactSet/Table cards
Telemetry — /metrics endpoint with session tracking, per-tool call distribution, host/intent usage
MCP Registry — Listed on the official MCP Registry
E2E test suite — 28 tool tests + 10 prompt tests with quality gates (a11y score, element count)

See the full CHANGELOG for details.

Related Projects

AdaptiveCards-Mobile — Cross-platform Adaptive Cards renderer
openclaw-adaptive-cards — OpenClaw AI agent plugin using this library
Adaptive Cards Documentation — Official docs
Adaptive Cards Designer — Interactive card designer
Adaptive Cards Schema Explorer — Interactive schema reference

License

MIT

Adaptive Cards

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