CourseNest MCP server

CourseNest 🎓

Open-Source, Local-First, Multi-Audience Educational Studio, Course Creator & Video Player

Keywords: local-first lms • offline course player • custom course creator • youtube course embed • pptx presentation reader • vlc web player • air-gapped learning • educational studio • desktop electron • android learning

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CourseNest is a modern, privacy-first, air-gapped educational studio and curriculum player designed for students, educators, and institutions. It lets you create custom courses, ingest course folders, view PowerPoint presentations, watch video lectures with VLC-grade audio controls, embed YouTube tutorials, and study offline with private local AI.

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🎨 Multi-Audience Theme & Aesthetic Studio

CourseNest features a built-in 9-theme design studio with bespoke typography (SIL OFL open-source fonts), atmospheric SVG scenic artwork with contrast scrims, theme-adaptive vector logos, and zero-CPU pure CSS GPU keyframe loaders:

Theme	Aesthetic Character	Emblem & Backdrop	Display Typography
🕌 Halal Edition	Islamic modesty & serenity	Rub el Hizb 8-point geometric star & Mosque minaret skyline	Plus Jakarta Sans
🌸 Sakura Bloom	Kawaii pastel & cozy floral	5-petal cherry blossom seal & Mt. Fuji Japanese garden vista	Nunito Rounded
🧱 Toybox Playful	Children & claymorphism	3D interlocking brick & bubbly floating landscape	Fredoka Bubbly
⚡ Neo-Tokyo Mecha	High-tech cyberpunk	HUD targeting reticle & neon metropolis skyline	Chakra Petch Tech
💥 Manga Screentone	Japanese comic action	Comic burst stamp, halftone screentone & speedlines	Chakra Petch Bold
🍃 Studio Ghibli Nature	Whimsical woodland meadow	Sprouting seedling & ancient camphor tree canopy	DM Sans Organic
🪨 Obsidian Moss	Deep-focus engineering	Monolith geometric blueprint & emerald glow	DM Sans Slate
🌑 OLED Midnight	0% true black battery saver	Celestial orbital ring & emerald hairlines	JetBrains Mono
📰 Clean Editorial	Daylight academic paper	Swiss drafting grid & minimalist layout	Inter / DM Sans

Reusable Engine: The entire theme engine is built modularly with open-source typography, SVG scenic backdrops, and theme-adaptive vector emblems inside packages/ui and packages/config.

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📸 Visual Showcase & UI Gallery

Learning Overview (Obsidian Moss)	Multi-Archive Importer (4-Step Stepper)

Lesson Player & Multi-Format Subtitles	Syntax-Highlighted Code Block (1-Click Copy)

In-App Mini Window Documentation Viewer	Local AI Study Buddy & Timestamps

Curriculum Roadmap Diagram	Append Supplementary Materials Mode

Course Dossier & Inline Title Editor	Storage Purge Confirmation Modal

Free Cloud AI TokenHarbor Verification	System Logs Ring-Buffer Explorer

Custom Course Studio & Authoring Engine	Native PowerPoint (.pptx) Slide Presentation Reader

Active Recall Flashcards Deck (3D Flip)	In-App AI Tool Actions & Temporal Grounding

🕌 Halal Edition Wallpaper	🌸 Sakura Bloom Garden

🧱 Toybox Playful Valley	⚡ Neo-Tokyo Mecha Skyline

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🎯 Design Engineering & Polish (Emil Kowalski Philosophy)

The user interface follows strict design engineering standards:

• Zero transition: all: Every transition in the codebase explicitly targets composite-only GPU properties (transform, opacity, background-color, border-color, box-shadow) to maintain a steady 60fps frame budget.
• Physical :active Feedback: Buttons and cards give immediate tactile feedback (scale(0.97) / active:scale-95). In the Manga theme, buttons physically compress into the page (translate(1px, 1px) with reduced shadow).
• Origin-Aware Popovers: Dropdowns and popovers (such as the notification flyout) scale from their trigger origin (origin-top-right zoom-in-95 ease-out), while dialog modals remain centered in the viewport.
• Custom Cubic-Bezier Easing: Uses strong deceleration curves (--ease-out: cubic-bezier(0.23, 1, 0.32, 1)) rather than sluggish browser defaults.
• Accessibility & Touch Safeguards: Full @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) motion dampening and @media (hover: none) sticky-hover prevention for touch screens.

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⚡ Core Architectural Pillars

1. 100% Offline-First Learning Core (Zero Cloud Overhead)

• Zero Telemetry or Remote Tracking: All course manifests, notes, bookmarks, quiz scores, and video progress are saved strictly to local device storage (SQLite WAL / IndexedDB).
• Low-End Hardware Optimization: Students with budget dual-core laptops run the application with 0% idle CPU. The app loads instantly and does not strain battery life or system memory.
• HashRouter Navigation: Complete independence from web server rewrites—works under http://, file://, and Android WebView.

2. VLC-Grade Media Suite Player

• 200% Web Audio Super-Gain Booster: Amplifies quiet professor recordings up to double standard volume using the Web Audio API.
• Speech Presence Clarity Equalizer: A dedicated Biquad bandpass boost (+6dB @ 2.5kHz) brings vocal frequencies to the foreground over background room echo.
• Frame-by-Frame Stepper: Step backward or forward by exactly 1/30th of a second for technical diagrams or code walkthroughs.
• A-B Looping: Set custom loop markers to repeat difficult lecture segments continuously.
• Full-Width Mouse Wheel Scroll: Unified scroll pipeline across 100% of the viewport width—smooth scrolling remains completely fluid whether hovering over video margins, controls, or code blocks.
• Picture-in-Picture (PiP) & Mini-Window: Seamless floating video playback while continuing to read course texts and lecture materials.
• Auto-Completion & "Next Lesson" Flow: Automatically marks units as complete when a lecture video finishes, prompting the student with an intuitive celebratory card to advance to the next unit with a single click or keyboard shortcut.
• External vlc:// Protocol Bridge: One-click stream handoff to desktop VLC Media Player.

3. Decoupled Media Tier & Storage Disconnection Resilience

• Separation of State and Multimedia: Heavy video files can be stored on removable USB flash drives or external SD cards, while learning state (notes, progress, quiz submissions) resides on internal device storage.
• Unplugged Resilience: If an external media drive is unexpectedly unplugged during playback, the application preserves all notes and checkpoint data, transitions gracefully to an informative reconnect prompt, and automatically resumes video upon re-insertion.

🗄️ Where Are Decompressed Files Stored? (e.g. LangChain Course)

CourseNest operates with an air-gapped, zero-cloud architecture. Decompressed archive files and media are stored depending on your runtime surface:

1. Web Browser (PWA / Chrome / Firefox):
   • Binary Media Blobs (Video, PDF, Audio): Stored directly in the browser's high-performance IndexedDB database under coursenest_media_vault_v1, in the media_files object store. Each file is keyed by ${courseId}::${filePath} (e.g., langchain-101::01-intro/lecture.mp4).
   • Course Manifests & Tree Structure: Persisted in localStorage (coursenest_custom_courses_v1), containing structured chapter outlines, lesson trees, and durations.
   • Progress & User State: Persisted in localStorage under coursenest_course_progress_v1 and coursenest_lesson_notes_v1.
   • Storage Purge on Deletion: When you click Delete Course, deleteCourseFromVault(courseId) opens a transaction against IndexedDB and permanently purges every binary chunk associated with that course ID, immediately reclaiming browser disk space.
2. Electron Desktop (Windows / Linux / macOS):
   • Stored in the local user data folder:
     • Windows: %APPDATA%\CourseNest\vault\courses\{course_id}\
     • Linux: ~/.config/CourseNest/vault/courses/{course_id}/
     • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/CourseNest/vault/courses/{course_id}/
   • Mirrored into desktop Chromium IndexedDB for instant streaming.
   • Course deletion unlinks both the filesystem directory and the IndexedDB records.
3. FastAPI Institutional Central Server (Optional):
   • Stored on server disk under apps/server/storage/courses/{course_id}/.
   • Course deletion asynchronously purges the directory and metadata.

4. Hardened Multi-Archive Ingestion Pipeline

• Multi-ZIP Aggregation: Supports selecting and merging multiple ZIP archives representing a single course in one folder.
• Zip Slip Defense: Canonical path boundary validation strictly rejects archive entries containing ../, root paths, or null bytes (\0).
• Atomic Staging & Rollback: Ingestion executes inside a temporary staging sandbox. If any validation fails, partial state is automatically rolled back to prevent corrupting the local vault.
• Untrusted Code Sandboxing: Ingested .html, .js, .py, or .sh files are parsed strictly as plain text within an inert preview pane—preventing arbitrary local code execution.

5. In-Browser Vector RAG, Tool-Calling Agent & Active Recall Suite

• In-Browser Semantic Vector Store: Sub-millisecond client-side vector search and BM25 term scoring engine that indexes video transcripts, PPTX slides, and reading materials completely offline with zero cloud dependencies and zero API costs.
• In-App Tool Calling & Temporal Provenance:
  • seek_video_player(timestampSeconds, reason): Directly navigates the video player to exact moments referenced in lecture discussions.
  • navigate_to_slide(slideNumber, reason): Automatically jumps the presentation viewer to referenced slide diagrams and presenter notes.
  • create_flashcard(question, answer, hint): Generates high-yield study cards saved directly to the student's review vault.
  • save_study_note(title, content): Automatically appends key takeaways and lecture checkpoints to student notes.
• Pedagogical Tutoring Modes:
  • 🧑‍🏫 Socratic Tutor: Guides the student with conceptual hints and thought-provoking questions rather than dumping raw answers.
  • ⚡ Technical Reference: Dense bullet takeaways, mathematical formulas, and exact temporal citations.
  • 🃏 Active Recall Quiz: Generates adaptive self-test questions.
• Interactive Active Recall Flashcards Deck:
  • 3D perspective flip cards with spaced repetition ratings (Hard, Good, Easy).
  • Lesson and whole-course filtering.
  • 1-click Anki TSV and JSON export for cross-platform review.
• Local Ollama & Bring-Your-Own-API: Seamlessly connects to local offline Ollama models (llama3.2, qwen2.5-coder, mistral) or remote cloud gateways (Gemini Pro, DeepSeek, TokenHarbor) with automatic tool calling and offline heuristic fallback.

6. Interactive Developer & Reference Suite

• Syntax-Highlighted Code Block Viewer: Built-in dark terminal chrome with line numbers, regex-based keyword/string/comment syntax highlighting, and tactile 1-click "Copy Code" with checkmark verification. Automatically parses inline code blocks (```lang ... ```) within course lecture notes.
• In-App Mini Window Documentation Viewer: Sandboxed browser iframe modal with traffic light controls, address bar, reload button, URL copy, and expand/minimize options. Allows students to read official documentation, MDN references, and course links without switching browser tabs or desktop applications.

7. Custom Course Studio & Visual Authoring Engine

• Visual Course Creation & Editing (#/studio & #/create): Educators and self-learners can create custom courses from scratch or edit existing curricula directly in the browser or desktop app.
• Multi-Format Content Blocks:
  • YouTube Video Embeds: Instant YouTube URL parsing (youtube.com/watch, youtu.be/, youtube.com/embed/) with privacy-enhanced embed playback (youtube-nocookie.com), custom play controls, and automated lesson completion.
  • Direct Video Streams & Local Media: Support for MP4, WebM, and local filesystem/media vault video assets.
  • PowerPoint Slide Decks: Embed .pptx and .ppt presentations directly into course curriculum lessons.
  • PDF & Document Readers: Embed local textbooks, scientific papers, and supplementary study guides.
  • Code Labs & Markdown Notes: Rich syntax-highlighted code blocks, lecture summaries, and markdown instructions.
• One-Click Vault Persistence & Export: Save directly to the local IndexedDB/localStorage vault (coursenest_custom_courses_v1) or export a standardized course JSON manifest to share with peers.

8. Native PowerPoint (.pptx) Slide Presentation Reader

• Client-Side Slide Parser: Zero cloud conversion or external server required—extracts and renders PowerPoint slides, shapes, bullet lists, formatting, and speaker notes directly in the browser via Web APIs and jszip.
• 16:9 Responsive Stage & Fullscreen Mode: Presentation-grade widescreen viewport with slide thumbnail rail, previous/next controls, keyboard hotkeys (Arrow Left/Right, Space), and fullscreen toggle.
• Integrated Speaker Notes Drawer: Collapsible presenter notes panel for reading detailed lecture commentary alongside slides.
• Web Speech TTS Slide Narration: In-slide text-to-speech audio narration reads slide titles, body bullets, and speaker notes aloud.
• AI Study Buddy Integration: One-click prompt transfer sends current slide content and speaker notes directly to the AI Study Buddy for instant comprehension Q&A and concept breakdowns.

9. Decrypt-Once Media Vault & Hardware Crypto Acceleration

• Native OpenSSL AES Hardware Acceleration: Directly utilizes Node.js native crypto with OpenSSL AES-NI instructions (~844 MB/s throughput), bypassing single-threaded WebAssembly memory-bound penalties.
• Decrypt-Once Architecture: Encrypted multi-part archives are decrypted once during import directly into the local vault tiers, delivering wire-speed media streaming and sub-5ms seek latency without runtime playback CPU throttling.
• Single-Prompt Course Password Deduplication: Dedicated CoursePasswordManager keys credentials per-course, eliminating repetitive password prompts across multi-part archives (75+ parts require only 1 initial prompt).
• OS-Level SafeStorage: Optional session credential persistence backed by native operating system secure vaults (Windows DPAPI, macOS Keychain, and Linux Secret Service). Plaintext passwords are never written to disk or logs.

10. Unified Responsive Navigation & Design System

• Fluid Resizable Splitter: Draggable sidebar splitter (180px–420px) with live pointer tracking, double-click reset to default 256px, keyboard accessibility (role="separator"), and automatic collapse to a 64px compact icon rail.
• Mobile Slide-Over Drawer: Touch-friendly off-canvas drawer with backdrop blur and responsive hamburger button for mobile devices (<768px).
• Unified Button Design Tokens: Canonical .cn-btn token contract providing uniform padding, focus rings, hover/active physics, and loading states across every screen.
• Resilient External Drive Poller: Singleton polling engine with 2.5s timeout guards, volume UUID tracking, and zero transient error flashes.

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🛠️ Monorepo Architecture

flowchart TD
    subgraph Storage["Storage & Hardware Tiers"]
        INT["Internal Vault (SQLite WAL / IndexedDB)\nProgress • Notes • Bookmarks • Quizzes"]
        EXT["Removable Volume (USB-OTG / SD Card)\nHeavy Video Lectures • Raw PDFs"]
    end

    subgraph Core["Core Packages"]
        IMP["@coursenest/importer\nMulti-ZIP • Zip-Slip Guard • MIME Sniffer"]
        MAN["@coursenest/course-manifest\nPortable JSON Course Specification"]
        SQL["@coursenest/sqlite-adapter\nClean Architecture Database Repositories"]
        UI["@coursenest/ui\nTheme Studio Tokens • StatusBadges • Roadmap"]
        MCP["@coursenest/mcp-server\nModel Context Protocol Stdio Server"]
    end

    subgraph Platforms["Cross-Platform Surfaces"]
        DESK["Electron Desktop\nLinux AppImage/deb • Windows .exe"]
        ANDR["Capacitor Android Shell\nPhones & Tablets (.apk)"]
        WEB["React 19 + Vite Web Client\nZero-Cloud Air-Gapped Mode"]
    end

    subgraph Optional["Optional Extensions"]
        AI["AI Reading Companion\nGemini Pro • Ollama • Offline Heuristics"]
        SRV["FastAPI Sync Server\nSQLite / PostgreSQL • Institutional Fleet Management"]
    end

    IMP --> MAN --> SQL
    SQL <--> INT
    Platforms <--> Core
    Platforms <--> Storage
    Platforms -.->|When Connected| AI
    INT -.->|Optional Sync| SRV
    MCP <--> SQL

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🔌 Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server

CourseNest includes an official Model Context Protocol (MCP) server (@coursenest/mcp-server), enabling AI coding assistants, agents, and desktop companions (such as Claude Desktop, Claude Web, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Antigravity) to inspect courses, explore curriculums, search transcripts, and save study notes directly through standardized JSON-RPC stdio.

⚙️ Claude Desktop Configuration

Add the CourseNest MCP server to your claude_desktop_config.json:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coursenest": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/absolute/path/to/Korse/packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

🛠️ Available MCP Tools & Resources

Tool / Resource	Type	Description
coursenest_list_courses	Tool	Lists all enrolled courses in the local vault with statistics, lesson counts, and progress
coursenest_get_curriculum	Tool	Returns the structured chapter and lesson tree for a course with lesson IDs, types, and durations
coursenest_get_lesson	Tool	Retrieves the full lesson content, lecture notes, video URL, code blocks, and transcript for study
coursenest_search	Tool	Performs keyword and full-text search across all enrolled courses, lecture notes, and transcripts
coursenest_save_note	Tool	Creates or updates study notes and markdown summaries for a specific lesson
coursenest_get_notes	Tool	Retrieves saved study notes and annotations for a specific lesson
coursenest_create_flashcard	Tool	Generates a new active recall question-answer flashcard for a lesson or topic
coursenest_get_flashcards	Tool	Lists all generated flashcards for a specific lesson or the entire course
coursenest_get_progress	Tool	Returns completion status, study time, and percentages across lessons and courses
coursenest://courses	Resource	Read-only JSON resource containing all enrolled courses and metadata
coursenest://progress	Resource	Real-time JSON resource containing offline study progress and completion timestamps
coursenest://flashcards	Resource	Real-time JSON resource containing user active-recall flashcard decks

🧪 Running MCP Standalone

You can run the MCP server directly via stdio:

# Build the MCP server
pnpm --filter @coursenest/mcp-server build

# Launch over stdio JSON-RPC
node packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js

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🚀 Quickstart & Testing

1. Prerequisites

• Node.js: >= 20.0.0 (LTS recommended)
• pnpm: >= 9.0.0
• Python: >= 3.11 (for optional FastAPI backend)

2. Monorepo Installation & Build

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/PixelApprentice/CourseNest.git
cd CourseNest

# Install all workspace dependencies
pnpm install

# Build all packages and the client
pnpm build

3. Launching the Applications

• Web Client (Live Testing):

  pnpm dev
  # Open http://localhost:5173
  

  Immediately explore pre-bundled university courses ("CS 101: Systems Programming & Operating Principles" & "Machine Learning: Algorithms & Inference") with video lectures, lecture notes, and quizzes, or navigate to /import to drag-and-drop your own .zip archives or video folders.

• Electron Desktop Application:

  pnpm dev:desktop
  

• Python FastAPI Central Server (Optional):

  cd apps/server
  python -m venv .venv
  source .venv/bin/activate
  pip install -e .
  uvicorn app.main:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000
  # API Docs: http://localhost:8000/docs
  

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📦 Building Platform Packages

🪟 Windows Desktop (.exe Installer)

CourseNest uses electron-builder with an NSIS target to package standalone Windows installers:

# Build desktop assets
pnpm --filter @coursenest/client build
pnpm --filter @coursenest/desktop build

# Build Windows NSIS executable installer & portable .exe
cd apps/desktop
pnpm dist:win
# Output located in: apps/desktop/release/CourseNest-Setup-1.1.0.exe