Statutory travel allowances on the rate tables the tax authorities publish, and the trips you priced with them. It prices one business trip against a bundled rate table and shows the arithmetic that produced the number: the allowance per day, the partial-day fraction the scheme's own ladder gave, every deduction for a meal somebody else paid for, and the total in the scheme's own currency. Three schemes ship with it, the Polish delegation regulation at home and per country, the HMRC benchmark scale rates for travel inside the UK, and the US GSA CONUS standard M&IE with the lodging cap. Start and end are instants rather than wall clocks, so a trip across a clock change is 23 or 25 hours, and the Polish 24-hour period and the US calendar day give different and equally correct answers to the same trip. Trips can be saved under a name with a TRIP-YYYY-NNNN id, listed with a total per currency, reported per scheme and per month, and handed to the expense tracker as ready-made expense_add arguments. The tables are files inside the package rather than a feed, so the same trip priced twice gives the same answer, and every rate carries its authority, instrument, source URL and effective date.
In agent mode perdiem_calc is a pure function of its arguments and touches no file, so an agent can price the same trip under all three schemes in one turn to see which one it is claiming under; only trip_record writes, and only it spends one of the month's five free trips.
| You say | Tool |
|---|---|
| What is the per diem for 58 hours in Krakow, leaving Tuesday at 8am, with breakfast provided on the first day and two hotel nights? | perdiem_calc |
| Price the same trip under the HMRC benchmark rates instead. | perdiem_calc |
| Save that as the Krakow audit trip and show me what I have claimed this quarter. | trip_record |
A destination that is not in the bundled table is refused by name rather than priced at a neighbour's rate. Measured through a real client on 2026-09-05: asked for a Polish per diem for Oman, the model called perdiem_calc, got back the server's own refusal (Poland domestic plus 34 countries abroad are bundled, so a missing country means not verified here rather than no rate exists), called perdiem_rates to check the coverage for itself, and then said plainly that it would not guess a number. An earlier build of this server answered that same trip with Romania's EUR 42.00 diet, because "romania".includes("oman") is true; the fallback is a prefix match now. In the same session a 58-hour Krakow trip came back at PLN 258.75, PLN 123.75 of diets plus PLN 135.00 of lodging ryczalt, with the arguments assembled from the prose unprompted.
The file is .vscode/mcp.json, and the key inside it is servers.
| Scope | Path |
|---|---|
| This workspace | <workspace>/.vscode/mcp.json |
| Every workspace | the user profile mcp.json, opened by the MCP: Open User Configuration command |
// .vscode/mcp.json (the key is "servers")
{
"servers": {
"per-diem": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@theluckystrike/mcp-per-diem"]
}
}
}Or from a terminal:
code --add-mcp '{"name":"per-diem","command":"npx","args":["-y","@theluckystrike/mcp-per-diem"]}'VS Code asks you to confirm you trust the server and its capabilities before it starts. Nothing runs until you answer.
The npm publish of @theluckystrike/mcp-per-diem is pending; until then use the .mcpb bundle or a clone and build from the latest release.
There is no hosted endpoint for this one yet. MCP Per Diem runs locally over stdio with the config above, which is also the only form in which it reads and writes files on your own disk. Three of the servers in this collection are served at https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/<name> over MCP streamable HTTP: time-tracker, price-tracker and invoice.
The top-level key is "servers", not "mcpServers". A config pasted from a Claude Desktop or Cursor README parses cleanly, contributes no servers, and gives you no error to read, which makes it the most expensive one-word mistake here. Alongside it an "inputs" array holds secrets. The newer Agent Host reads a workspace .mcp.json instead.
Free: Rate lookups and calculations are unlimited on every tier, on all three schemes: the tables are public regulation, and metering the reading of a regulation would be charging for the tax authority's work rather than for this server's. 5 trips saved a calendar month, counted by start date, and unlimited trip lists. Pro is $19 once, verified offline.
The key is servers, not mcpServers. A config copied from a Claude Desktop README parses cleanly and contributes nothing. Rename it. On the newer Agent Host, use a workspace .mcp.json instead.
No. code --add-mcp takes the server object on the command line, and MCP: Add Server in the palette asks whether the target is Workspace or Global.
In Chat, behind the tools picker, once the server has started. Adding or changing one raises a prompt asking you to confirm you trust it; if the picker is empty, that prompt is usually still waiting.
MCP Per Diem in detail · The same server in Cursor and Windsurf · Every server in VS Code · Guides · VS Code docs · Buy Pro