ContextVM
Running MCP over Nostr
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Hi HN, I'm Gzuuus, the creator of ContextVM this is my first post here, hope you find it interesting!I started building ContextVM some months ago, this is an open protocol that runs the Model Context Protocol (MCP) over Nostr.In practice, it’s a transport for MCP that lets you expose remote servers without needing a domain, inbound ports, or OAuth, clients, and servers only need an outbound internet connection.The problem I ran into: When deploying a remote MCP server you can feel the pain. You usually need a domain name, a static IP, TLS certificates, port forwarding, and some way to auth (often OAuth). That friction makes it hard to spin up a service on your laptop or a Raspberry Pi and expose it safely.ContextVM solves this at the transport layer. It replaces HTTP/SSE with Nostr relays that act like a distributed, stateless message bus:Identity/auth: public keys instead of OAuth.Network/transport: clients and servers only need outbound connection to relays, so you can run behind NAT or a strict firewall.Security: client↔server traffic is end-to-end encrypted; relays just route encrypted events blindly.Addressing/discovery: servers (and clients) are addressable by public key, no domains required. Servers can be announced on relays instead of central registries. Private servers can skip announcements entirely, clients connect if they know the server’s public key.Payments: Recently we included a payment method agnostic specification defining the lifecycle of payments, this is CEP-8 https://docs.contextvm.org/spec/ceps/cep-8/The best part, you don’t need to rewrite your existing MCP servers:- `cvmi`: a CLI to expose any local HTTP/Stdio MCP server over ContextVM. For example, `npx cvmi serve -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /tmp`- `ctxcn`: inspired by `shadcn/ui`. It connects to a server, reads its MCP schema, and generates a type-safe TypeScript client into your codebase.- TypeScript SDK: for those who want to build natively on the protocol.- Project site: It works as a tool for discovery, and debugging, you can run your server locally and connect through the siteWe'd love feedback, questions, or critiques. If you want to dig deeper, you can visit the project page for a blog, read the docs, or just build something. It's all open source, permissionless, and fun!We are also publishing a bi-weekly newsletter on substack: https://contextvm.substack.com/Code: https://github.com/contextvmProject site: https://contextvm.orgDocs: https://docs.contextvm.org
HN · launched Feb 25, 2026 · 6 upvotes (top 72%) · 0 views
Niche: model context protocol tools · 465 launches, 13 in the last 7 days ▼ -24% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- AI feature
- Hobby / open-source project
More like this: all 465 launches in model context protocol tools →
Could you build this?
Yes ContextVM bridges two well-defined open protocols (Model Context Protocol and Nostr) using standard WebSocket relay libraries and existing JSON-RPC schemas.
Discussion
4 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: ChatGPT, Skills (alternative task orchestration approach)
Concerns raised: ChatGPT can't connect to localhost MCP servers, requires public internet endpoint, Security/privacy concerns about exposing private MCP to public internet, Unclear how public endpoint requirement works with ContextVM's approach
Feature requests: Enable calling CVM servers via bash scripts with CVMI, Clarification on public endpoint/domain/TLS requirements for OpenAI integration
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 391 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #336 of 392 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 119 days after the earliest competitor.
- MCP Gateway · hn · 2025-12-03 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- GuardiAgent · hn · 2025-11-21 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- Murl · hn · 2026-02-21 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- Model Tools Protocol (MTP) · hn · 2026-02-10 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- Open-Source Notion MCP Server (TypeScript, SSE, Apify) · hn · 2025-12-15 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- MCP Server for OpenTelemetry · hn · 2025-11-18 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- openapi-mcp · ph · 2026-10-29 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- NexusMCP · ph · 2026-09-29 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.47
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