Shipping Go Ask a Stranger as an MCP Server

The Concept

Go Ask a Stranger is a small service where someone can ask a question into the void and someone else can answer it. I wanted it reachable from an AI agent, so I built it as an MCP server. The initial release (204f743a) exposed the ask/answer flow as MCP tools, which means any MCP-capable client can use it without custom integration.

The Backend

In parallel I committed the backend (0652fd2d) and immediately stopped tracking CLAUDE.md in the backend repo (f18af78e) so my agent notes didn’t ship with the service. I pointed the default API endpoint at goaskastranger.uk (f779eabd) rather than a local URL, so the published server works out of the box.

Identity Support

I added optional identity for both askers and answerers (e4def487, 2f642c64). The service is anonymous by design, but letting a participant attach a name makes longer exchanges feel less like shouting into a well. It’s optional on both sides—if you don’t provide a name, the experience stays fully anonymous.

Publishing

I bumped to 1.0.2 and published to npm (6d625bd9). Publishing early is a forcing function: it makes the install path real, which is where most of the bugs were in my earlier tools.

A Short, Complete Day

This was a compact project—backend, protocol surface, docs, and a release in one sitting. Not every day is a deep kernel investigation. Sometimes the win is taking an idea all the way to a published package while it’s still interesting.