Console MCP

The eve-iac VSIX exposes bounded, structured console tools to Copilot Agent, Cursor Agent, and other MCP hosts. There is no MCP interactive PTY, attach, or watch stream tool — by design.

MCP uses request/response operations rather than an unbounded terminal byte stream.

MCP console tools (V1)

Tool Purpose
eve_iac_console_exec Execute one command (optional explicit session_id)
eve_iac_console_exec_many Execute multiple commands on one node
eve_iac_console_history Tail of Hub history
eve_iac_console_wait Wait for regexp on Hub history + live data
eve_iac_console_run Ordered expect/send steps
eve_iac_console_sessions List active console sessions

Not exposed via MCP: attach, stream, watch, or session create/close as interactive tools. Humans use VSIX Open Console or CLI attach; automation uses SDK/CLI/API directly when needed.

Output bounds

The VSIX truncates MCP payloads for the model. The agent owns Hub semantics.

Surface Default / cap
History Default 8 KiB; hard max 32 KiB
Wait match snippet Bounded (truncation flagged)
Run transcript / steps Bounded (truncation flagged)
Exec output Bounded

Responses include truncated when output is cut. send_secret values are stripped from MCP results.

Default exec vs shared session

  • Omitted session_id on eve_iac_console_exec → one-shot execution (separate TCP). Does not auto-join an open VSIX terminal.
  • Explicit session_id → same Hub as the human terminal or prior session.

MCP never silently picks a session. Pass session_id from eve_iac_console_sessions or from the engineer.

Human + AI shared-console workflow

Typical collaboration:

  1. Engineer opens R1 with Open Console in the VSIX → agent issues session_id.
  2. Engineer shares that session_id with the AI (or AI lists sessions and the human confirms).
  3. AI calls eve_iac_console_history or eve_iac_console_wait to read the prompt.
  4. AI may eve_iac_console_exec or eve_iac_console_run if the session mode allows writes.
  5. Human sees the same console output in the VSIX terminal.
  6. Both share one Hub and one EVE Telnet TCP.

AI has no special privileges. Agent locking rules (observe, interact, exclusive) apply identically.

Console output is operational state, not desired state. Prefer editing topology.yml / configs/ for configuration changes. Use console tools to observe, diagnose, and verify.

Operator MCP setup (owner window, Configure Connection): AI / MCP. Shared session model: Console sessions.