Publish MCP Server as a standalone package

[dwhoban]

Problem

Currently the MCP server is not published to NPM.

For users to include it within other development tools they have to pull down the repository and run via a local command, which is not an ideal workflow.

This limits discoverability, and the ability to develop plugins and extensions for other MCP Marketplaces.

Solution

Update the deployment process to publish/release the MCP server under the existing @ansible/ansible-mcp-server package name and amend the documentation.

Guidance should also be given as to best practices for use of this server given the env context of a project workspace - i.e. should it be used as project level MCP server only.

Alternatives

The lightest alternative is to update the documentation to provide guidance on how to install and use the MCP server without VSCode - e.g. clone the repo.

The broadest alternative is to move this to a standalone repository but that seems unnecessary.

Additional context

No response

[alisonlhart]

Hi @dwhoban , thanks for opening this request! We've been waiting to see community feedback about if this is wanted, so this is great. Any further +1's from the community looking for this would be appreciated so we can prioritize it.

[ssbarnea]

While not a priority for us I can ensure you that I will review any PR for enabling this.