Rewrite landing page: ELI5 intro, no AI buzzwords

- Lead with "One question away" — explains NOAA's station network, the
  API gap, and what mcnoaa-tides does, in plain language
- Progressive disclosure: simple explanation → use cases → technical
  details → install
- Remove all "AI" references across docs (tagline, getting-started)
- Install section leads with generic MCP JSON config, not product-specific
This commit is contained in:
Ryan Malloy 2026-02-24 11:16:25 -07:00
parent a900581af5
commit 7e10496e0a
2 changed files with 75 additions and 47 deletions

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import { Card, CardGrid } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
**mcnoaa-tides** is an [MCP](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) server that
connects AI assistants to the
connects your assistant to the
[NOAA CO-OPS Tides and Currents API](https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/).
It exposes tide predictions, observed water levels, and meteorological
observations from approximately 301 U.S. coastal stations — all through a

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@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
title: mcnoaa-tides
template: splash
hero:
tagline: Real-time NOAA tide and marine data for AI assistants
tagline: Tides, weather, and conditions from 300 U.S. coastal stations
image:
html: |
<svg viewBox="0 0 440 320" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="hero-wave" aria-hidden="true">
@ -70,72 +70,67 @@ import { Card, CardGrid, LinkCard } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
<div class="splash-section">
## What's inside
## One question away
<CardGrid>
<Card title="14 Tools" icon="rocket">
Station discovery, tide predictions, water levels, weather data, marine
condition snapshots, tidal phase classification, deployment intelligence,
chart visualization, and diagnostics.
</Card>
<Card title="4 Prompt Templates" icon="document">
Guided workflows for fishing trip planning, marine safety checks,
crab pot deployment assessment, and catch-to-tide correlation analysis.
</Card>
<Card title="3 MCP Resources" icon="open-book">
Station catalog, station detail, and nearby station lookup — structured
context that any MCP client can read directly.
</Card>
<Card title="Visualization" icon="seti:image">
Tide charts and multi-panel conditions dashboards rendered as PNG images
or interactive HTML with Plotly.
</Card>
</CardGrid>
NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — runs a network of
tide stations along every U.S. coast. About 300 of them, from Eastport, Maine
to Pago Pago, American Samoa. They measure water levels every six minutes.
Many also track wind speed, air pressure, and water temperature. All of it gets
published as free, public data.
The catch? The raw API isn't exactly conversational. Station IDs, product
codes, datum references, time formats — it's built for machines, not people.
**mcnoaa-tides sits in the middle.** It's a server that knows how to talk to
NOAA's API, and it lets your assistant handle the details. You ask
*"when's the best time to fish near Seattle?"* and behind the scenes, the
nearest station gets found, 48 hours of tide predictions get pulled, weather
conditions get checked, and you get a window you can actually plan around.
No API keys. No data wrangling. Just ask.
</div>
<div class="splash-section">
## What can you do with it?
Ask your assistant a question. It calls the right tools and comes back with an answer grounded in real NOAA data.
## What does that look like?
<CardGrid>
<Card title="Plan a fishing trip" icon="star">
*"When's the best time to fish near Newport this weekend?"*
Finds nearby stations, pulls tide turning points, checks wind and
barometric pressure, and identifies the optimal incoming-tide window.
barometric pressure, and identifies the best incoming-tide window.
</Card>
<Card title="Check before you launch" icon="warning">
*"Is it safe to take the boat out from Seattle today?"*
Runs a marine safety check — wind speed, gust, visibility, water
temperature, and pressure trend — returns a GO / CAUTION / NO-GO.
Checks wind, gusts, visibility, water temperature, and pressure trend.
Comes back with GO, CAUTION, or NO-GO — and tells you why.
</Card>
<Card title="Snorkeling at low tide" icon="sun">
*"When's the next good low tide for snorkeling at La Jolla?"*
Finds extreme low tides that expose reefs, checks water temperature
and wind to confirm conditions are worth the trip.
Finds extreme low tides that expose reefs, checks water temperature and
wind to confirm the trip is worth the drive.
</Card>
<Card title="Tide pooling with kids" icon="magnifier">
*"Find the lowest tide this week near Monterey for tide pooling"*
Scans 7 days of predictions for the deepest lows — negative values
mean water drops below the average low-water mark, exposing more pools.
Scans a full week of predictions for the deepest lows. Negative values
mean the water drops below the usual low-water mark — more pools exposed.
</Card>
<Card title="Deploy crab pots" icon="setting">
*"Should I deploy pots near Anacortes right now?"*
Checks tidal phase, runs a deployment briefing with wind/temp/pressure
thresholds, and recommends an optimal soak window.
Checks tidal phase, runs a deployment briefing against wind and pressure
thresholds, and recommends a soak window with a recovery time.
</Card>
<Card title="Beachcombing" icon="heart">
*"When will the tide be low enough to reach the tidepools at Cannon Beach?"*
<Card title="Beachcombing after a storm" icon="heart">
*"When's the next low tide at Cannon Beach? I want to look for agates."*
Finds the next low-tide window, checks for post-storm debris potential
by looking at recent pressure drops and wind events.
Confirms a recent storm passed through by checking pressure drops,
then finds the first post-storm low-tide window.
</Card>
</CardGrid>
@ -143,21 +138,54 @@ Ask your assistant a question. It calls the right tools and comes back with an a
<div class="splash-section">
## Install
## What's inside
The fastest way to run the server — no permanent install needed:
The server ships with 14 tools, 4 guided workflows, and 3 data resources.
If your assistant supports [MCP](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) (most do),
it can use all of them.
<CardGrid>
<Card title="14 Tools" icon="rocket">
Find stations, pull tides, check weather, classify tidal phases, assess
deployment conditions, detect anomalies, generate charts — plus a few
more for diagnostics and capability testing.
[Full tool reference →](/reference/tools/)
</Card>
<Card title="4 Prompt Templates" icon="document">
Pre-built workflows that walk through multi-step tasks: fishing trip
planning, marine safety checks, crab pot deployment, and catch pattern
analysis. Your assistant follows the steps, you get the results.
[Prompt reference →](/reference/prompts/)
</Card>
<Card title="3 MCP Resources" icon="open-book">
Station catalog, station detail, and nearby station lookup — structured
data your assistant can read directly without calling a tool first.
[Resource reference →](/reference/resources/)
</Card>
<Card title="Visualization" icon="seti:image">
Tide charts and multi-panel conditions dashboards, rendered as PNG
(shows inline) or interactive HTML (pan, zoom, hover for values).
[How-to: Charts →](/how-to/visualization/)
</Card>
</CardGrid>
</div>
<div class="splash-section">
## Get started
Run the server — no permanent install needed:
```bash
uvx mcnoaa-tides
```
Register it with your MCP client. For example, in Claude Code:
```bash
claude mcp add mcnoaa-tides -- uvx mcnoaa-tides
```
Or add to any MCP client's JSON config:
Then register it with your MCP client. Most accept a JSON config:
```json
{