cite-gate MCP server

cite-gate

A small checker for scripts written with AI help. It makes every factual item in a script carry a quote that appears word for word in a source file, and it flags prose that copies the source instead of retelling it.

It doesn't decide whether a claim is true. It decides whether you can point at the sentence your claim came from, and whether that sentence actually exists.

$ python -m cite_gate check examples/gettysburg/claims.json
5 items · 91 words · 2 failures · 1 warnings
  FAIL [number-not-in-quote] number(s) ['1776', '87'] not in the quotes
  FAIL [quote-not-in-source] quote not found in 'gettysburg': 'this nation shall endure forever and ever'
  warn [copied-not-retold] 26 consecutive words shared with the quotes; retell, don't copy

The example fails on purpose: its last three items are mistakes that a language model makes all the time (a number it worked out itself, a quote it half remembered, a paragraph lifted from the source).

Why

Language models write fluent prose with confident details. The details that go wrong are the small ones: a year that's off by one, a name added "for context", a quote paraphrased into something the source never said. Reading the whole script against the sources by hand doesn't scale. This tool turns that reading into a gate you can run on every change.

What it checks

Exit code is 1 when there are failures. --strict also fails on warnings.

Input format

A claims file (JSON) and a folder of plain-text sources, one file per source id.

{
 "config": {"allow": ["Lincoln"], "copy_run": 11},
 "sections": [
  {"title": "The occasion",
   "items": [
    {"id": "opening",
     "text": "He began by looking back four score and seven years ...",
     "claims": [{"src": "gettysburg",
                 "quote": "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation"}]}
   ]}
 ]
}

sources/gettysburg.txt holds the source text. Keep your own copy of each source (with its URL and revision noted at the top), so a later run checks against the same text.

Config

Use

Command line (Python 3.10+, no dependencies):

pip install .            # from a checkout; adds the `cite-gate` command
cite-gate check path/to/claims.json [--sources DIR] [--json] [--strict]

# or without installing
python -m cite_gate check path/to/claims.json

GitHub Actions:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: cite-gate/cite-gate@v0
  with:
    claims: script/claims.json
    strict: "false"

Use from your agent (MCP)

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.