Forem: Pamela Gilmour

I Built a Fullstack App With Custom MCP Server Integration

Pamela Gilmour — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:55:46 +0000

I first heard of the model context protocol last year (I think? 😶‍🌫️) at a networking event and was eager to build something with it.

I have previously built an mcp server prototype for public apis at my previous job and I recently ran into some downtime at work so I jumped at the chance of building something new and go deeper with my learning hoping to build another mcp tool.

So I built this simple app as a learning project. It's essentially collects data the user give it and the chat bot uses the Anthropic Claude API to query the given data. It's not a terribly creative concept or interface but I definitely had a lot of fun putting it together.

I recorded a demo of the flow which can be viewed on yt:

It's also live here: https://p-11-one.vercel.app/

Intake Form using React and Django

Pamela Gilmour — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 03:47:45 +0000

Links to deployed:
frontend https://virtualcharms.github.io/consult-app/

Why?

As our lives get increasingly productive, many people are not able to make time for themselves, and specifically, to keep up on healthcare appointments. A digital intake form would be useful for users who would rather fill out an intake form at home or on their own time and be able to receive results and treatment plans remotely.

The pandemic and life in quarantine has seen the use of e-health and remote medicine skyrocket as a lifeline for both clients/patients and practitioners alike.

Brief Demo:

I got started on a digital intake form for an independent health practitioner or even as a liasion to an EHR, a.k.a: an electronic health record app or website.

The Planning Process

I came up with this idea as a practitioner myself, as a solution for my own practice, in order to keep in touch with my existing clients (we all have crazy schedules) and to inspire potential clients to try out a new method of client and practitioner interaction through this digital version.

When I first plotted out the course of this project, I knew that it would be a grand undertaking so I broke it down into individual components and decided to tackle the most technical heavy aspect of the project. But looking back, this part of the project may have been the most challenging part of the project.

App Features

There are 2 main features of this project app:

a backend (built with Django) that houses intake questions and potentially, protected client responses.
a frontend (built with React) that displays questions brought in from the backend and that receives and saves the client’s responses from inputs.

Highs and Lows:

Challenges

Coming back to React after a few weeks away was a little scary but went well.
This project was especially challenging for me. After my last several projects, I tried to try out something different this time and I definitely came up against far more road blocks.

Triumphs

Returning to React was not as scary as I thought it would be and I was really excited to pick up Bootstrap for the first time with relative ease.
Building the back-end with Django was chill. I did try out a new-to-me thing called enum as a choice field.

Things I would do differently

I think the biggest lesson learned from this project is that, when it comes to coding, things that seem straight forward are usually never straight forward. In the future I will prefer to err on over planning instead of getting stuck mid-project because of lack of planning.
Once I get thru this part of the app I will like to be able to add User Auth and get my app to be HIPPAA compliant!

My first React App

Pamela Gilmour — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 16:49:54 +0000

Project2v1 from Pamela Gilmour on Vimeo.

https://virtualcharms-horoscope.herokuapp.com/

What is it?

I am venturing into tech from holistic health and part of my job is to be knowledgeable of any healing modality that I come across. Astrology is a vast and deep field with a rich history. People for millennia have accessed astrology as well as countless other divination methods to improve their lives, enhance their luck and find love. Most of the astrologers I personally follow, their work is influenced by psychology at some level (usually either professional or academically). Today, astrology is becoming more and more prominent in pop-culture, no longer confined to one page at the back of a newspaper or magazine. I am seeing more and more horoscope apps and I love them all. It’s exciting for me to see these traditionally and inherently esoteric institutions merging with technology AND this is the very crux of my own creative work.

So as I was preparing for my second project, creating a React app that accesses an API, I went searching for an API that resonated with me. I found this delightful horoscope API (http://ohmanda.com/api/horoscope/) in a google search, and got to coding my app.

My Process:

This was my second project so I incorporated my time-management lessons from my last project and first, actually looked at what my deadline was before I got emotionally invested. I created my own deadlines accordingly and wrote up a simple MVP that I thought would be achievable in the timeframe given.

Features:

My app is a simple horoscope app: It has a welcome greeting, a header so you know what you are looking at and a list of the zodiac signs in a colorful card-like layout, with an image and range of birthdates for each sign accordingly. So, in order to read your horoscope, you just click on the card of your Sun sign and VOILA! You get a horoscope message from the horoscope API! How cute!

Lessons Learned:

I was able to incorporate some basic CSS grid, with which I tried out several different layouts. I decided with a list format because it was the least awkward experience.

With my first pass of code, I made a component for each zodiac sign, but decided that was not the best use of React and so went back and refactored my code to be simpler and more dynamic. CLEAN & DRY!

Stretch Goals:
Now that I have the beginnings of a hip, bright, and colorful horoscope app, on a free weekend in the future, I will be replacing the images with those that I will have illustrated myself (https://virtualcharms.github.io/fortune-click/), optimizing load speed, thinking up more features to make the page more interactive and informative and maybe even playing with the layout more.