Part of #17649
---
# Allow MCP server to run without authentication
This PR enhances the MCP server to operate without requiring authentication, making it more flexible for environments where authentication isn't available or necessary. Key changes:
- Replaced `InitClient` with `TryInitClient` to allow the MCP server to start without credentials
- Added graceful handling when URL or authentication is missing
- Made authentication status visible in server logs
- Added logic to skip user-dependent tools when no authenticated user is present
- Made the `coder_report_task` tool available with just an agent token (no user token required)
- Added comprehensive tests to verify operation without authentication
These changes allow the MCP server to function in more environments while still using authentication when available, improving flexibility for CI/CD and other automated environments.
* Refactors toolsdk.Tools to remove opaque `map[string]any` argument in
favour of typed args structs.
* Refactors toolsdk.Tools to remove opaque passing of dependencies via
`context.Context` in favour of a tool dependencies struct.
* Adds panic recovery and clean context middleware to all tools.
* Adds `GenericTool` implementation to allow keeping `toolsdk.All` with
uniform type signature while maintaining type information in handlers.
* Adds stricter checks to `patchWorkspaceAgentAppStatus` handler.
* Updates default Coder prompt.
* Skips the directions to report tasks if the pre-requisites are not
available (agent token and app slug).
* Adds the capability to override the default Coder prompt via
`CODER_MCP_CLAUDE_CODER_PROMPT`.
Fixes two issues with the MCP server:
- Ensures we have a non-null schema, as the following schema was making
claude-code unhappy:
```
"inputSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": null },
```
- Skip adding the coder_report_task tool if an agent client is not
available. Otherwise the agent may try to report tasks and get confused.
- Refactors existing `mcp` package to use `kylecarbs/aisdk-go` and moves
to `codersdk/toolsdk` package.
- Updates existing MCP server implementation to use `codersdk/toolsdk`
Co-authored-by: Kyle Carberry <kyle@coder.com>
Adds a `coder exp mcp` command which will start a local MCP server
listening on stdio with the following capabilities:
* Show logged in user (`coder whoami`)
* List workspaces (`coder list`)
* List templates (`coder templates list`)
* Start a workspace (`coder start`)
* Stop a workspace (`coder stop`)
* Fetch a single workspace (no direct CLI analogue)
* Execute a command inside a workspace (`coder exp rpty`)
* Report the status of a task (currently a no-op, pending task support)
This can be tested as follows:
```
# Start a local Coder server.
./scripts/develop.sh
# Start a workspace. Currently, creating workspaces is not supported.
./scripts/coder-dev.sh create -t docker --yes
# Add the MCP to your Claude config.
claude mcp add coder ./scripts/coder-dev.sh exp mcp
# Tell Claude to do something Coder-related. You may need to nudge it to use the tools.
claude 'start a docker workspace and tell me what version of python is installed'
```
