TEO Telescope Protocol

The Elephant Observatory's knowledge graph as an MCP server.

Your AI assistant hallucinates about metamodernism. It thinks Game B is a board game and that "relevance realization" is a marketing framework. The Telescope Protocol gives AI tools direct access to TEO's curated knowledge graph — 700+ published nodes on sensemaking, the meta-crisis, complexity theory, and liminality — so when the conversation touches these topics, it has something real to draw from.

Free. No account required. Read-only.

---

Tools

Tool	What it does
search_nodes	Semantic search over TEO's knowledge graph. Pass a natural language query, get the most relevant nodes with similarity scores.
get_node	Full node detail by slug — tiered description (Apprentice/Adept/Magus), tags, observer, confidence score, glossary, dimension scores, source video URL.
lookup_glossary	Look up sensemaking terminology. Pass a term for direct lookup, a query to search definitions, or omit both for the full glossary.
get_observer	Observer profiles — bio, themes, published node list, top tags. Pass no slug to list all observers.
explore_neighborhood	Graph traversal from a node — connected nodes with relationship types (prerequisite / relates_to / extends / contrasts).
get_constellation	Current or past weekend editorial theme — featured nodes and observers.

---

Setup

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "teo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@teo-observatory/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "TEO_SUPABASE_URL": "https://your-project.supabase.co",
        "TEO_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY": "your-anon-key",
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your-gemini-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to your Cursor MCP config (.cursor/mcp.json in your project, or the global config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "teo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@teo-observatory/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "TEO_SUPABASE_URL": "https://your-project.supabase.co",
        "TEO_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY": "your-anon-key",
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your-gemini-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Any MCP-compatible client

npx @teo-observatory/mcp-server

With env vars set:

• TEO_SUPABASE_URL — TEO's Supabase project URL
• TEO_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY — TEO's public anon key (read-only)
• GEMINI_API_KEY — Your Google Gemini API key (only needed for search_nodes)

The server runs over stdio. No auth required — all tools are anonymous and read-only.

---

Getting the env vars

The TEO_SUPABASE_URL and TEO_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY are the public credentials for TEO's knowledge graph. Visit theelephantobservatory.org/mcp to get them.

For GEMINI_API_KEY, sign up at aistudio.google.com. The free tier is more than enough — semantic search costs roughly $0.00001 per query.

If you don't provide GEMINI_API_KEY, all tools except search_nodes still work. The glossary, node lookup, observer profiles, graph navigation, and constellation data are just Supabase reads.

---

Tool Reference

search_nodes

Semantic search over TEO's published knowledge graph using pgvector.

Input

{
  "query": "what is the meaning crisis?",
  "limit": 5,
  "tier": "apprentice"
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	required	Natural language question or concept
limit	number	5	Results to return (1–20)
tier	"apprentice" | "adept" | "magus"	"apprentice"	Description depth

Returns — Array of nodes with slug, title, description, tags, observer, similarity, confidence_score, image_url.

---

get_node

Full node detail by slug.

Input

{
  "slug": "relevance-realization",
  "tier": "adept"
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
slug	string	required	Node URL slug
tier	"apprentice" | "adept" | "magus"	"apprentice"	Description depth

Returns — Node with slug, title, description, tags, observer, confidence_score, image_url, source_url, glossary (terms appearing in the node), dimensions (5 epistemic scores).

---

lookup_glossary

TEO's Rosetta Stone — a dictionary of sensemaking terminology.

Input

{ "term": "symmathesy" }

{ "query": "feedback loop" }

{}

Field	Type	Description
term	string	Partial term match (case-insensitive)
query	string	Search across both term names and definitions

Both fields optional. Omit both to return the full glossary.

Returns — Array of { term, definition }.

---

get_observer

Observer profile or full directory.

Input

{ "slug": "john-vervaeke" }

{}

Field	Type	Description
slug	string	Observer's URL slug. Omit to list all observers.

Returns (single observer) — slug, name, bio, website_url, image_url, top_tags, nodes[].

Returns (directory) — Array of { slug, name }.

---

explore_neighborhood

Graph traversal from a center node.

Input

{
  "slug": "relevance-realization",
  "depth": 1
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
slug	string	required	Center node slug
depth	1 | 2	1	Hop depth

Returns — { center: NodeResult, neighbors: NeighborNode[] } where each neighbor has a relationship type.

---

get_constellation

Current or past weekend editorial theme.

Input

{}

{ "weekend_of": "2026-04-18" }

Field	Type	Description
weekend_of	string	ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD). Omit for most recent.

Returns — { weekend_of, title, theme, featured_nodes[], featured_observers[] } or null.

---

Rate Limits

Per-session (per-process) limits to protect Supabase and the Gemini API:

Tool	Limit
search_nodes	50 calls/hour
All other tools	100 calls/hour (shared)

When a limit is hit, the tool returns a clear error message with the reset time.

---

Description Tiers

Every node in TEO has three depth levels:

Tier	Audience
apprentice	Accessible summary — clear language, no jargon assumed
adept	Analytical — full conceptual context, some domain vocabulary
magus	Dense — for specialists, maximum fidelity to source material

Default is apprentice. Use adept or magus when the AI needs more nuance for reasoning or citation.

---

What TEO Is

The Elephant Observatory synthesizes the fragmented sensemaking web — metamodernism, Game B, the meaning crisis, complexity theory, and liminality — into interconnected, attributed knowledge nodes. Every node is extracted from a real talk or essay, attributed to its author, tagged, scored for fidelity, and linked to its neighbors.

The MCP server is the graph without the interface. The knowledge available to every AI tool that speaks MCP.

Visit theelephantobservatory.org to explore the full Observatory.

---

License

MIT