Bezalel

“I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship” (Exodus 31:3). Bezalel was the craftsman who made the tabernacle. This Bezalel is a small, open MCP server: it lets the AI assistant your team already uses, such as Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT, draw on this reference while you design. It is built to slow you down at the right moments. It brings the whole spectrum of options, the research with its limits and the questions to ask, and it leaves the deciding to you.

Add it to your assistant

The server address is https://patterns.missional.design/mcp. No account or key is needed.

• Claude (web and desktop): add a custom connector with this address in your connector settings.
• Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http bezalel https://patterns.missional.design/mcp
• Cursor and other editors: add an MCP server of type “streamable HTTP” with this address to your MCP configuration.
• ChatGPT: where your plan allows custom connectors, add this address as an MCP connector.

Connector menus change often; if your tool asks for a transport, choose Streamable HTTP.

What to ask

Describe a feature the way your team would, then ask for a review. For example: “Use Bezalel to review a daily reading streak with push reminders,” or start one of its prompts: Design review, Three ways debate or Pre-mortem: who could this hurt?

What it can do

• map_feature: the decisions inside a feature, each with its full spectrum of options (including leaving it out), their provenance, and the questions to ask.
• challenge_default: for a feature copied from mainstream apps, what that pattern is built to maximise, what the research adds, and alternatives that serve the person.
• three_ways: the exploitative, ethical and redemptive versions of a feature, for a debate rather than a verdict.
• premortem: the most vulnerable people likely to use it, and the question to ask for each.
• draft_worksheet: the decision worksheet, with pointers for each step, for your team to fill in.
• search_reference, list_deep_dives, get_deep_dive, find_sources and principles: the reference itself, with every source’s limits.

How it behaves

Bezalel offers options, evidence and questions, not verdicts. It asks your assistant to show every option, to ask your team before recommending, to link every page it draws on, and to leave theological, pastoral and safeguarding judgments to people who can make them. There is no AI on the server: your own assistant does the reasoning with what Bezalel returns.

Privacy

Bezalel keeps nothing. Each request is answered and forgotten; the feature descriptions you send are not stored or logged, and there are no accounts or cookies. The web server keeps standard access logs (time, address and path, not content) for security.

Licence

The content is CC BY 4.0 and the server code MIT. The same content is available as plain data in the content API. Bezalel is new: please tell us how it works in your team’s hands: which assistant you used, what you asked, what helped and what it got wrong.