Steelmind MCP server

Steelmind MCP — Structured Thinking & Verification for AI Agents

The research-grounded reasoning MCP server for AI agents. Combines step-by-step sequential thinking with steel-manning verification — backed by 43+ cognitive science and AI research papers.

Steelmind gives your AI agent two tools:

• think — Record structured reasoning steps with sequential decomposition. Embeds Socratic self-questioning and Polya's problem-solving method.
• verify — Challenge conclusions with steel-manning before committing. Embeds dialectical evaluation from MetaCrit and SIEV research.

The code is minimal. The descriptions do the heavy lifting — tool descriptions account for ~80% of reasoning improvement per Anthropic τ-bench research.

Why Steelmind?

Key research insight: MetaCrit (arxiv 2507.15015) proved that separating reasoning generation from reasoning evaluation prevents self-bias and improves accuracy by up to 76%. Sequential-thinking uses one tool for both. Steelmind separates them.

Quick Start

npx (no install)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steelmind": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@stabgan/steelmind-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Docker

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steelmind": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "stabgan/steelmind-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

npm global install

npm install -g @stabgan/steelmind-mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "steelmind": {
      "command": "steelmind-mcp"
    }
  }
}

How It Works

The think tool

Records a structured reasoning step with sequential tracking.

Input:

{
  "thought": "What are the dependencies? Need to check imports before refactoring.",
  "thoughtNumber": 1,
  "totalThoughts": 3,
  "nextThoughtNeeded": true
}

Output (mid-sequence):

[Thinking 1/3]

What are the dependencies? Need to check imports before refactoring.

Output (final step — includes verify nudge):

[Thinking 3/3]

My conclusion: use the adapter pattern for backward compatibility.

---
Thinking complete. Before acting on this conclusion, use the verify tool to challenge it.

The verify nudge appears in the tool result (not just the description), making it far more likely the model will actually call verify. Tool results get different attention treatment than descriptions — they're processed as fresh context.

The verify tool

Challenges your reasoning with steel-manning before you commit.

Input:

{
  "concern": "The adapter pattern adds complexity. Is the simpler approach actually better?"
}

Output:

The adapter pattern adds complexity. Is the simpler approach actually better?

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.