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MCP integration

CMDOP speaks Model Context Protocol  in both directions:

  • As a server: cmdop mcp stdio exposes terminal, file, and agent tools to any MCP host (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code).
  • As a client: CMDOP can call other MCP servers — Linear, Sentry, Postgres — so your agent has third-party tools alongside the built-in ones.

MCP is opt-in. The daemon does not start an MCP server by default; you launch one explicitly with cmdop mcp stdio (per-host) or by passing --with-mcp to cmdop agent start (always-on).

Why this matters

If you already use Claude Desktop, Cursor, or another MCP host, plugging CMDOP into it gives that host:

  • Terminal tools — execute_command, read_file, write_file, grep, glob, list_dir — gated by your CMDOP permission rules.
  • Agent tools — ask_agent, ask_agents — the host can ask agents on your registered machines instead of just running things locally.
  • Same auth — your existing OAuth login carries through; no second account.
  • Same audit log — every MCP-driven tool call goes through the permission gate (see Permissions) and lands in the same audit log as direct CLI / Desktop calls.

There is no “shadow surface”: MCP rides on top of the same security floor that protects the rest of CMDOP.

Server mode (cmdop mcp stdio)

cmdop mcp stdio
# JSON-RPC over stdin/stdout. Configure your MCP host to spawn this.

This is what hosts like Claude Desktop and Cursor expect. They start the binary as a subprocess, talk to it via stdio, and get a catalogue of tools and resources.

You almost never run this manually — point your host’s config at the binary and let the host spawn it. See:

Client mode (external servers)

CMDOP can also connect to third-party MCP servers and surface their tools to your agent:

cmdop mcp servers add linear   # interactive add
cmdop mcp servers list
cmdop chat                     # external tools now visible to the agent

When the agent uses an external MCP tool, the call still passes through CMDOP’s permission gate — you can allow or deny per server. See External servers.

Where to next

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