For coding agents

Use the books in your coding agent

Connect Claude Code, Cursor or Claude to the Lamport Press MCP server. Your agent can then find the chapter that explains the thing you are stuck on, and quote it while it helps you write the program.

What your agent gets

Free, with no key: every chapter list, the map from each program-examples program to the chapter that walks it, the glossaries, the free guides in full, and search across all four volumes with short snippets.
With your Gumroad license key: the full text of the volumes you bought. A Basics key opens Basics; a complete-series key opens all four.

The server is https://lamport.press/mcp. It answers in the same words as the book, with the pinned source the chapters quote.

Connect it

Claude Code

Free tier:

claude mcp add --scope user --transport http lamport-press https://lamport.press/mcp

With your license key, kept in an environment variable rather than in a project file:

export LAMPORT_PRESS_KEY=your-license-key
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http lamport-press https://lamport.press/mcp \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer ${LAMPORT_PRESS_KEY}'

The single quotes matter: Claude Code reads the key from your environment when it connects, so set the variable in the shell you start claude from.

Cursor

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then reload the window. Leave out headers for the free tier.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lamport-press": {
      "url": "https://lamport.press/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:LAMPORT_PRESS_KEY}" }
    }
  }
}

Claude on the web

Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Name it Lamport Press, use https://lamport.press/mcp as the URL, and switch it on from the tools menu in a chat. Custom connectors cannot send a license key, so the web app always gets the free tier. For the full text, use Claude Code or Cursor.

Where your license key is

Open your Gumroad library and the book you bought. The key sits on its download page, four groups of eight characters separated by dashes. Every purchase has one, including purchases made before keys existed. A refund switches the key off.

What to ask it

“My escrow’s take instruction fails. How does the official example do it?”

The agent searches the books, lands on Tokens, chapter 6, and reads “Act two”, the walk through take_offer.rs. It compares your accounts and constraints with the example’s and tells you which chapter it used.

“Which program-example shows a transfer hook, and where is it explained?”

The example map answers from the free tier: the program path, and Token Extensions, chapter 15, Transfer Hook: Hello World.

“Explain how this PDA is derived, the way the book does.”

The glossary defines the term for free. With a key, the agent reads Basics, chapter 11, on storing data in program derived addresses, and explains your seeds against the program the chapter walks.

Without a key, each answer still names the chapter and shows a few lines of it, with a link to buy the book.

Questions

What does the server keep about me?

A hash of your key, the Gumroad sale it belongs to, and a salted hash of the addresses that used it. Never the key itself, and nothing that names you. The privacy page has the full list.

Can my agent read everything for free?

No. The free tier shows the map and a few lines per chapter, and stops showing lines after a while for the same chapter. The books are what you pay for.

Is this the Solana Foundation’s server?

No. Lamport Press is independent. The books read the official program-examples; they do not speak for the Foundation.