Business Design

You have a local MCP server that lets you create and manage business design artifacts like Business Model Canvases, Lean Canvases, SWOT analyses, and user personas. It runs locally, stores data on your machine, and connects with clients to perform structured planning and analysis tasks.

How to use

Connect to the Business Design MCP Server using your MCP client. The server runs locally and exposes a set of tools to create canvases, analyses, user personas, projects, and more. You can orchestrate research, build frameworks, and export results in multiple formats from a single project.

How to install

Prerequisites: you need Node.js installed on your machine. Verify by running node -v and npm -v.

Install and start the MCP server with the local runtime using the following command.

npx business-design-mcp

Additional configuration and usage notes

Configure Claude Desktop to access the MCP server by adding the following MCP server entry to your Claude Desktop configuration. This enables Claude to start the MCP client and connect to the local server.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "business-design": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "business-design-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude-specific startup instructions

If you use Claude to manage MCP connections, you can add the server with this command.

claude mcp add business-design -- npx -y business-design-mcp

Notes on data and usage

All data is stored locally under ~/.business-design/. You will find projects/ for project files and entities/ for canvases, analyses, and personas. Use the available tools to create, update, export, and manage your business design artifacts.

Available tools

create_project

Create a new project to organize your business design artifacts

get_project

Retrieve a project with all its related entities

update_project

Update project metadata and settings

delete_project

Delete a project and all of its entities

list_projects

List all projects in the local store

list_project_entities

List entities within a project, with optional type filtering

export_project

Export a project to JSON or Markdown for sharing or documentation

create_business_model_canvas

Create Osterwalder’s nine-block canvas including customer segments, value propositions, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partnerships, and cost structure

update_business_model_canvas

Update an existing business model canvas

create_lean_canvas

Create Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas with problem, solution, unique value proposition, unfair advantage, customer segments, key metrics, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams

update_lean_canvas

Update an existing lean canvas

create_value_proposition_canvas

Create a value proposition canvas with customer profile and value map components

update_value_proposition_canvas

Update an existing value proposition canvas

create_swot_analysis

Create a SWOT analysis with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, including impact levels and action items

update_swot_analysis

Update an existing SWOT analysis

create_user_persona

Create a user persona with demographics, psychographics, behavior, goals, frustrations, motivations, and scenarios

update_user_persona

Update an existing user persona

create_competitive_analysis

Analyze competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, pricing, and market features

update_competitive_analysis

Update an existing competitive analysis

create_market_sizing

Provide TAM, SAM, SOM with methodology and assumptions

update_market_sizing

Update an existing market sizing analysis

research_and_create

AI-powered research to create a framework in one step (requires OpenAI API key)

deep_research

Run AI research to gather insights for a framework

populate_framework

Create an entity from AI research results

configure_openai

Set OpenAI API key at runtime

check_openai_config

Verify the OpenAI API key configuration