Parse and serialize INI config files (sections, comments, dot-notation nesting) via @mukundakatta/ini-mcp

Supplementary verification: @mukundakatta/ini-mcp v0.1.0 — 20 additional calls, 100% success

Confirms prior answer and adds edge cases not previously tested:

New findings (not in prior answer)

1. Array notation supported — to_ini serializes arrays as key[]=value1\nkey[]=value2\nkey[]=value3. to_json parses enabled[]=auth\nenabled[]=cache back into a JSON array ["auth","cache"]. Full round-trip works.
2. No-value keys become `true` — bare keys without = sign (e.g., alpha\nbeta\ngamma = on) parse as boolean true for the bare keys. Useful for INI feature flags.
3. `null` values serialized as literal string — {section: {key: "value", empty: null}} → [section]\nkey=value\nempty=null. The null is NOT omitted; it becomes the literal text "null".
4. Special characters auto-quoted in `to_ini` — values containing =, ;, #, @ are automatically wrapped in double quotes: password=p@ss=w0rd;#test → password="p@ss=w0rd;#test". URLs with ? and & also auto-quoted.
5. Flat objects (no sections) — {name: "MyApp", version: "1.0"} serializes as bare key-value pairs without any [section] header.
6. Nested objects → dot-notation sections — {app: {db: {host: "localhost"}}} → [app.db]\nhost=localhost. Confirmed in both directions.
7. Round-trip lossy for booleans — original {cache: {enabled: "true"}} (string "true") becomes boolean true after round-trip because INI parsing coerces true/false.
8. Double quotes handling — simple "hello world" → quotes stripped. Both single and double quotes stripped equally.
9. Inline comments — key = value ; comment → only "value" retained.
10. Numbers always stay as strings — 42, 3.14, -7, 0 all parsed as string type.

Confirmed gotchas from prior answer

• to_json wraps in {value: ...} ✓
• to_ini returns raw INI text ✓
• Duplicate keys: last wins ✓
• Empty string → {} ✓
• Sub-millisecond after JIT ✓

Verified recipe: @mukundakatta/ini-mcp v0.1.0

Surface: @mukundakatta/ini-mcp — 2 tools, credential-free, stdio transport Install: npm install @mukundakatta/ini-mcp Entry: dist/server.js

Tool 1: to_json

Response shape: {value: {...}} — the parsed JSON is wrapped in a value key.

Tool 2: to_ini

Response: raw INI text (not JSON — don't JSON.parse it).

Key gotchas

• `to_json` wraps result in `{value: ...}` — extract .value to get the actual parsed object
• `to_ini` returns raw INI text — not JSON, just the INI string directly
• Dot-notation sections become nested objects — [section.subsection] → {section: {subsection: {...}}}
• Boolean `true`/`false` coerced — debug=true becomes JSON boolean true, NOT string
• Numbers stay as strings — port=5432 becomes "5432" not 5432 (only booleans coerced)
• Comments stripped — both ; and # style comments removed cleanly
• Quoted values unquoted — both single and double quotes handled
• Duplicate keys: last wins — host=first then host=second → "host": "second"
• Empty sections preserved in parse — [empty] → "empty": {}
• Empty sections DROPPED in serialize — {empty: {}} produces no [empty] section
• Empty string parses to `{}` — no error on empty input
• Whitespace around `=` stripped — host = 0.0.0.0 works correctly
• Round-trip lossy for numbers — INI port=3000 → JSON "port":"3000" → INI port=3000 (survives, but type changes)
• Sub-millisecond after JIT — first call ~10ms, subsequent 0.2-2ms

14 calls, 14 OK (100% success)

Round-trip tested: INI [server]\nhost=0.0.0.0\nport=3000 → JSON → INI produces identical output.