arena-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server for Are.na — create channels, browse, search, and add products to your boards with guaranteed real product images. Plus a weekly Style Radar that scans underground menswear trends and stages fresh finds.

Are.na is a quieter, human-curated alternative to Pinterest: channels are boards, blocks are the things you pin.

Tools

arena_add_product accepts fallback_urls — if the primary link is dead it tries the fallbacks (a GOAT goat.com, Amazon /dp/, or garmentory product URL image-resolves reliably).

Related MCP server: Nemo

The image pipeline (src/pipeline.ts)

The hard-won bit. For any candidate URL it: skips listing/search pages; scrapes og:image with a browser UA; detects dead links (a product URL that redirects off its /products/ path to a catalog is dead); falls back to Are.na's own fetcher; and pixel-validates with sharp — rejecting 2560×2560 screenshot renders, blanks (std<20), error pages (mean>248), and tiny images. Only a real product photo gets added. Reliable image hosts: Carhartt WIP, Uniqlo, Nike (valid product URLs), Amazon /dp/, GOAT, garmentory product pages, watch retailers.

Run

Requires Node 18+. npm install && npm run build.

Local (stdio, for Claude Code / Desktop):

{ "mcpServers": { "arena": { "command": "node", "args": ["/abs/path/arena-mcp/dist/index.js"],
  "env": { "ARENA_ACCESS_TOKEN": "…" } } } }

Remote (streamable HTTP, hosted on Fly): set MCP_HTTP=1 and it serves POST /mcp on $PORT behind a bearer token (MCP_AUTH_TOKEN). Deployed at https://arena-mcp.fly.dev/mcp. Connect from Claude Desktop / claude.ai as a custom connector with Authorization: Bearer <MCP_AUTH_TOKEN>.

Get a personal access token at dev.are.na → ARENA_ACCESS_TOKEN (write scope to create channels/blocks).

Style Radar (src/radar.ts)

A weekly trend scanner (runs as a scheduled Fly machine, node dist/radar.js). It scrapes underground/enthusiast RSS (r/streetwear, r/rawdenim, r/goodyearwelt, r/malefashionadvice, Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, Die Workwear, Permanent Style, Put This On), then uses the Anthropic API with web search to find fresh, on-aesthetic pieces and their real product URLs, runs them through the image pipeline, and posts survivors to a Radar Are.na channel (a staging board you review). Env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, RADAR_CHANNEL_SLUG, ARENA_ACCESS_TOKEN.

Style evolution (keeping a styling skill from going stale)

A static styling skill locks in whatever taste it was written with. Three tools + two Are.na channels give it a feedback loop:

• style_log captures raw learnings ("done with cropped hems") into a Style Journal channel, append-only, from any surface (Desktop, mobile, claude.ai).

• style_directives / style_set_directives read and write a Style Directives channel -- a single living Markdown doc holding current-season focus + recent shifts. A skill loads it at the start of a task so recommendations reflect the latest direction without republishing the skill (the fast loop).

• A periodic human-gated review (the companion style-review skill) reads the journal, promotes durable learnings into the skill proper, folds temporary ones into the directives, and discards noise (the slow loop). Uses a Last reviewed: <date> watermark in the directives to avoid re-processing (Are.na blocks can't be individually deleted).

Channel slugs are configured via STYLE_JOURNAL_SLUG / STYLE_DIRECTIVES_SLUG (default style-journal / style-directives).

Deploy notes (v3 API)

Built against Are.na v3 (https://api.are.na/v3; v2 writes are wound down). Blocks: POST /v3/blocks {value, channel_ids}; image URL under image.src; visibility not status. A block entity can't be deleted (DELETE /v3/blocks/:id -> 405), but a block can be removed from a board by deleting its connection (DELETE /v3/connections/:connection_id, where the id is on each contents item's connection object) -- this is what arena_remove_block does, so no full rebuild is needed just to drop a few pieces. Search is Premium-gated.

License

MIT