alter-demo-agent

Minimal reference implementation for connecting an AI agent to the ALTER MCP server. ALTER is identity infrastructure for the AI economy -- psychometrically-grounded identity verification, multi-domain trait modelling, and privacy-preserving identity queries, all accessible via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Prerequisites

• An ALTER API key (get one at truealter.com/developers)
• Python 3.10+ with httpx, or Node.js 18+

Quick start -- Claude Desktop

Add ALTER to your Claude Desktop MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alter-identity": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@anthropic-ai/sdk@latest",
        "mcp-server",
        "--transport", "sse",
        "--url", "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
        "--header", "X-ALTER-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_KEY with your API key. Restart Claude Desktop. Call hello_agent once — it reports your tier and the exact free / premium / messaging tool counts available to your key.

Quick start -- npx one-liner

npx -y @anthropic-ai/sdk@latest mcp-server \
  --transport sse \
  --url https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp \
  --header "X-ALTER-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

Quick start -- raw HTTP

ALTER's MCP server accepts JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST. No SDK required.

curl -s -X POST https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-ALTER-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {"name": "hello_agent", "arguments": {}},
    "id": 1
  }'

Examples

File	Language	What it does
examples/python/hello.py	Python	Calls hello_agent -- first handshake, confirms connection
examples/python/verify_and_match.py	Python	Four-call read-only discovery flow — handshake, handle resolution, archetype taxonomy, network stats
examples/typescript/hello.ts	TypeScript	Calls hello_agent using fetch

Authentication

All requests use the X-ALTER-API-Key header. Without a key, you are treated as anonymous (10 req/min, L0 tools only). With a key, you get full access to your tier's tools and rate limits.

POST https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp
Content-Type: application/json
X-ALTER-API-Key: alt_sk_live_...

JSON-RPC 2.0 format

Every MCP call follows this shape:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "tool_name_here",
    "arguments": { }
  },
  "id": 1
}

Successful responses contain result.content[0].text (human-readable text) and optionally result._meta (structured data). Errors contain error.code and error.message.

Discovery

Agents can discover ALTER via:

• MCP registries -- ALTER is listed in public MCP tool registries
• DNS TXT -- _mcp._tcp.truealter.com contains the server URL
• agent-card.json -- https://truealter.com/.well-known/agent-card.json
• llms.txt -- https://truealter.com/llms.txt and https://truealter.com/llms-full.txt

Documentation

• Tool reference -- full tool catalogue with schemas and examples
• Transport protocol -- sessions, auth, error codes, rate limits
• Identity model -- Side Quest Graph, engagement levels, trust model
• Pricing -- tier pricing and x402 payment flow

Licence

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.