Oak & Ivory: a sample retail MCP App

Oak & Ivory is the sample retail MCP App that ships with Metabind. It demonstrates the patterns most product MCP Apps will share — a Data Tool that searches a catalog, an Interactive Tool that renders product details, and a layout component reused across multiple Tools. This page walks through what’s in it and why each piece exists.

What Oak & Ivory does

Oak & Ivory exposes two MCP tools to a connected AI host:

Tool	Type	Purpose
`product_search`	Data Tool	Searches the catalog by keyword and returns structured product data
`product_detail`	Interactive Tool	Renders a single product as an interactive card, with image, title, price, and call-to-action

Together they support flows like:

A user asks for running shoes; the AI calls product_search, then product_detail, and the user sees an interactive product card rendered inline.

The AI decides when to chain — product_search returns JSON, product_detail returns interactive UI.

Get the sample

Two ways:

In MCP App Studio onboarding. When you create a new project, choose Oak & Ivory as the starter. MCP App Studio provisions the components, Types, and sample data.
From a template. In an existing organization, click New project → Use template → Oak & Ivory.

You get a fully working MCP App with no further setup. Open the project to see the components, test the tools, and connect a host.

The new-project sample picker in MCP App Studio with the Oak & Ivory retail template available alongside a blank starter

What’s in the project

The Oak and Ivory project bundles six components, one Data Tool (product_search), one Interactive Tool (product_detail), and 18 sample products.

The sample API runs on Metabind’s infrastructure — no external dependencies to set up. For a production deployment, the product_search handler would point at your real catalog.

How `product_search` works

The Data Tool’s handler is intentionally simple — fetch a sample API, return the JSON:

export default defineDataSource({
  metadata: {
    title: "Product Search",
    description: "Search the Oak & Ivory catalog by keyword"
  },
  properties: {
    query: { type: "string", description: "Search term" },
    limit: { type: "number", validation: { min: 1, max: 25 }, defaultValue: 5 }
  },
  output: {
    products: PropertyArray({ valueType: PropertyGroup({ ... }) }),
    total: PropertyNumber({})
  },
  handler: async (props, env) => {
    const url = `${env.apiBaseURL}/oak-ivory/search?q=${props.query}&limit=${props.limit}`;
    const res = await fetch(url);
    return res.json();
  }
});

A real product would replace env.apiBaseURL with their own API base, add auth via env.secrets, and likely transform the response shape. The patterns are what generalize: schema validation, V8 sandbox, output validation, sandbox limits. See Sandboxed execution for the runtime model.

How `product_detail` works

The Interactive Tool is bound to the ProductCard component. Its input schema mirrors the component’s properties:

properties: {
  title: { type: "string" },
  price: { type: "string" },
  image: { type: "asset", assetTypes: ["image"] },
  description: { type: "string", inspector: { control: "multiline" } },
  reviews: {
    type: "array",
    valueType: PropertyGroup({
      properties: {
        author: PropertyString({}),
        rating: PropertyNumber({ validation: { min: 1, max: 5 } }),
        text: PropertyString({})
      }
    })
  }
}

When the AI calls product_detail with a product, the platform:

Validates the input against the schema.
Compiles ProductCard’s BindJS layout against the input.
Returns an MCP UI resource for the host to render.

Inside your own app via the Assistant SDK, the card renders as SwiftUI on iOS and Jetpack Compose on Android. Web hosts like Claude and ChatGPT render it as React, via @metabindai/bindjs-react in a sandboxed iframe.

Sub-component reuse

ProductCard is composed from smaller pieces — ProductImage, ProductTitle, ShopButton, ReviewsSection. These are normal BindJS components in the project, available as building blocks for other layouts. If you add a product_compare tool that shows three products side-by-side, you could write a ProductCompare layout that reuses ProductTitle and ProductImage. The sub-components carry the styling, hover states, and accessibility through.

Component allowlist

The project’s allowed-components list includes the six components above. If a new MCP App reused this package and added a LandingHero layout, the project palette would need to grow to include it before the layout could reference it. See Component allowlists.

Connecting Oak & Ivory to Claude Desktop

Once the sample is in your account:

Click Connect in the project sidebar.
Pick Claude Desktop.
Copy the config and paste it into your Claude Desktop config file. See Connect to Claude Desktop.

In Claude Desktop, ask:

Show me some running shoes from Oak and Ivory.

Claude calls product_search, picks the top result, then calls product_detail to render it. You see an interactive product card inline in the conversation.

Embedding Oak & Ivory in your own app

To embed the same tools in a custom app via the Assistant SDK, see Assistant SDK overview. Point the SDK at the Oak & Ivory project, choose the Metabind Agent proxy or your own Anthropic key, and ship. The same product_search and product_detail calls work, and the rendered cards appear as SwiftUI on iOS, Jetpack Compose on Android, and React on the web.

Customizing Oak & Ivory

Once Oak & Ivory is in your account, it’s a real project — modify it freely:

Replace the sample API. Point product_search at your real catalog and add an API key secret.
Restyle the components. Edit ProductCard, change colors, change layout.
Add new tools. A cart_add, a wishlist_save, a recommendations Data Tool. Each becomes another Type.
Publish. When you’re done, publish the package — it’s now your own MCP App.

Starting from the sample is the recommended path. The shape is correct; the content is yours to evolve.

Your first MCP App

The end-to-end tutorial that uses Oak & Ivory.

Build an Interactive Tool

The pattern product_detail follows.

Build a Data Tool

The pattern product_search follows.

Connect to Claude Desktop

Try Oak & Ivory’s tools in a real host.

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Building Your MCP App

Publishing

Connecting to MCP Hosts

Assistant SDK

Operations

Sample Apps

Oak & Ivory: a sample retail MCP App

What Oak & Ivory does

Get the sample

What’s in the project

How `product_search` works

How `product_detail` works

Sub-component reuse

Component allowlist

Connecting Oak & Ivory to Claude Desktop

Embedding Oak & Ivory in your own app

Customizing Oak & Ivory

Your first MCP App

Build an Interactive Tool

Build a Data Tool

Connect to Claude Desktop

​What Oak & Ivory does

​Get the sample

​What’s in the project

​How product_search works

​How product_detail works

​Sub-component reuse

​Component allowlist

​Connecting Oak & Ivory to Claude Desktop

​Embedding Oak & Ivory in your own app

​Customizing Oak & Ivory

​Related

Your first MCP App

Build an Interactive Tool

Build a Data Tool

Connect to Claude Desktop

What Oak & Ivory does

Get the sample

What’s in the project

How `product_search` works

How `product_detail` works

Sub-component reuse

Component allowlist

Connecting Oak & Ivory to Claude Desktop

Embedding Oak & Ivory in your own app

Customizing Oak & Ivory

Related