agent-mcp-hub
One MCP server that bridges multiple CLI coding agents — Codex, Cursor,
OpenCode, Claude, and Antigravity — into any MCP client.
stdio only — by design. The hub ships no Docker image and no HTTP
transport (both were removed during the 0.5.x line). A containerised or remote
server cannot see the caller's repository path and cannot reuse the caller's
CLI logins — it would break the product contract on both halves. The hub runs
as a child process of your MCP client, on your machine, as you.
Tools
codex | Delegate a prompt to codex exec (prompt piped via stdin) |
cursor | Delegate a prompt to cursor-agent -p (prompt piped via stdin) |
opencode | Delegate a prompt to opencode run |
claude | Delegate a prompt to the Claude Code CLI (prompt piped via stdin) |
agy | Delegate a prompt to Google Antigravity (agy --print=…, prompt passed as a flag value) |
run_all | Same prompt to all agents in parallel, results side by side |
list_agents | Which agent CLIs are installed and on PATH |
ping | Health check |
Agent tools accept prompt (required), model, cwd, timeoutMs (total runtime
cap, default 1800000 = 30 min), and idleTimeoutMs (inactivity cap, default 300000
= 5 min). See Long-running tasks & timeouts.
Known limitation: opencode prompts may not start with - (its CLI could parse
them as flags); the tool returns an actionable error instead of guessing.
Choosing models per agent
Model ids are agent-specific and do not overlap. o3 means nothing to
agy, gemini-3.6-flash-low means nothing to codex, and opencode namespaces
its own (opencode/big-pickle). So a single model value is valid for at most
one agent in a fan-out.
run_all takes models — a per-agent map. Agents you don't list fall back
to model, then to their own CLI default.
review_change takes runnerModel and reviewerModel, so the agent
writing the change and the agent judging it can use different engines and
tiers. model remains a fallback for both.
{
"tool": "run_all",
"arguments": {
"prompt": "Explain the retry logic in src/exec.ts",
"models": { "codex": "o3", "agy": "gemini-3.6-flash-low", "claude": "haiku" }
}
}
An unknown agent name in models is rejected with the list of enabled agents —
a typo never silently falls back to the default model.
Where to find valid ids: opencode models, cursor-agent models and
agy models list them. codex and claude have no such command — codex reads
its default from ~/.codex/config.toml, and claude accepts the documented
aliases (opus, sonnet, haiku, fable). Note claude models is not a
subcommand: it is treated as a prompt, so its "model list" is generated text,
not a source of truth.
Error handling
When a wrapped CLI fails, the hub classifies the failure and returns a clean,
ANSI-free, actionable isError result — never a raw terminal dump — naming the
class and the exact fix:
not_installed | install the CLI (e.g. npm i -g @openai/codex) / fix PATH |
not_authenticated | codex login · cursor-agent login · opencode auth login · claude → /login · agy → sign in on first run (or set the matching API key) |
not_configured | set a model/provider in the CLI's config |
timed_out | raise timeoutMs, or check the agent/model is responsive |
stream_stalled | the agent reached the network but its stream keeps dropping (e.g. cursor behind a TLS-intercepting proxy) — treat that agent as unavailable; raising timeoutMs will not help |
server_busy | retry shortly (upstream rate-limit, or the local agent-spawn queue is full) |
tool_failure | generic non-zero exit — the message includes (exit N) and a trimmed output tail |
For example, an unauthenticated cursor no longer returns its ANSI "press any
key to sign in" banner — it returns cursor is not authenticated … Fix: run cursor-agent login``.
Review a change (review_change)
Runs a runner agent in a git cwd to make a change, captures the actual
git diff of what changed, then has a reviewer agent judge that diff. Returns
the runner's output, the diff (--stat), and a PASS / WARN / FAIL verdict
with findings.
Inputs: runner, reviewer (agent names), prompt, cwd (must be a git
worktree), optional runnerModel, reviewerModel, model (fallback for both),
timeoutMs.
Key notes:
-
Cross-agent by design — e.g. codex writes, claude reviews.
-
Returns the concrete diff that the plain agent tools don't expose.
-
Newly-created (untracked) files are surfaced to the reviewer with their
contents (bounded: 64 KiB per file, 50 files; excess is truncated and
flagged). git diff alone would omit them entirely.
-
If the worktree was already dirty, the diff may include pre-existing changes
(noted in the output).
-
Complements — does not replace — client-side stop-hooks or PR-time CI review.
-
The confirm gate (MCP_CONFIRM) applies.
-
The reviewer runs least-privilege — but how much that guarantees depends on the
agent. The reviewer's prompt embeds an attacker-influenced diff, so it is run
read-only rather than with the write grant the runner gets. Only two of the five
are real restrictions:
codex | -s read-only | Yes — OS-level sandbox |
claude | --disallowedTools Write,Edit,…,Bash | Yes — harness-level deny |
cursor | --trust --mode plan (no --force) | No — model-advisory only |
agy | permission grant withheld | Partly — headless auto-deny, not a sandbox |
opencode | none available | No — unrestricted |
Pick codex or claude as the reviewer if you want the restriction to be real.
This is defense-in-depth alongside the nonce-fenced diff and the throwaway temp
cwd; none of it is a sandbox.
{
"tool": "review_change",
"arguments": {
"runner": "codex",
"reviewer": "claude",
"prompt": "Add retry with exponential backoff to the API client",
"cwd": "/Users/you/projects/my-app"
}
}
Prerequisites
Install and authenticate the CLIs you want to use (any subset works):
- Codex:
npm i -g @openai/codex && codex login
- Cursor:
curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash && cursor-agent login
- OpenCode:
npm i -g opencode-ai && opencode auth login
- Claude Code:
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code && claude (first run logs in)
- Antigravity: install the Antigravity CLI (e.g.
brew install --cask antigravity-cli),
then run agy once and sign in — it has no login subcommand and stores
credentials in the OS keyring, so there is no API-key env var to set
Install
Recommended — global install (fast, reliable startup): install the pinned
version once, then point your client at the agent-mcp-hub binary. Startup is
instant and the client connects reliably.
npm i -g agent-mcp-hub@0.5.0
Claude Code
claude mcp add agent-hub -- agent-mcp-hub
Cursor / generic mcp.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"agent-hub": {
"command": "agent-mcp-hub"
}
}
}
Zero-install alternative (npx)
No global install, but npx re-resolves the package on every launch, so first
start is slower and can occasionally trip a client's connection-probe timeout
(the server itself is fine — just retry). Prefer the global install for a
persistent setup.
claude mcp add agent-hub -- npx -y agent-mcp-hub@0.5.0
Pre-release / fallback: To test an unreleased commit, run directly from
GitHub: npx -y github:blackaxgit/agent-mcp-hub#<tag-or-sha>. This builds
from source on first fetch, so under npm v12+ you must allow the prepare
script.
Configuration
MCP_AGENTS — comma-separated allowlist of the agents to expose
(codex,cursor,opencode,claude,agy). Unset or empty exposes all agents. Disabled
agents get no tool and are absent from list_agents/run_all. An unknown name
fails at startup with an error listing the valid names, so typos never silently
disable an agent.
For stdio, set it in the client's mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"agent-hub": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "agent-mcp-hub@0.5.0"],
"env": { "MCP_AGENTS": "codex,claude" }
}
}
}
Confirm before running an agent — MCP_CONFIRM
Set MCP_CONFIRM=1 (values 1/true/on/all; default off) to require a
confirmation before any agent tool — and run_all — actually spawns a CLI. The
server sends a brief summary (agent · prompt · cwd · model) and waits: accept
runs the agent, decline runs nothing and returns a terminal cancellation.
This uses the standard MCP elicitation capability, so it is client/IDE-agnostic —
it works with any MCP client that supports form elicitation (Claude Code, Cursor,
VS Code, Zed, Windsurf, custom SDK clients, …); the gate keys on the protocol
capability, never a product name. Clients that don't support elicitation
transparently run without a prompt (no hang, no error).
{
"mcpServers": {
"agent-hub": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "agent-mcp-hub@0.5.0"],
"env": { "MCP_CONFIRM": "1" }
}
}
}
Long-running tasks & timeouts
A complex agent task can run for many minutes. The hub bounds each run with two
independent timers so a productive long run survives while a genuinely stuck one
fails fast:
- Idle (inactivity) timeout —
idleTimeoutMs (per call) / MCP_AGENT_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS
(env), default 300000 (5 min). The timer resets on every chunk of output the
CLI produces, so an agent that keeps working (streaming output) never trips it. An
agent that goes silent — e.g. opencode stuck on an unreachable model backend —
is killed after the idle window with an actionable "no output — the agent may be
hung or its model/backend is unreachable" error, instead of burning the full cap.
- Total runtime cap —
timeoutMs (per call) / MCP_AGENT_TIMEOUT_MS (env),
default 1800000 (30 min). A hard upper bound regardless of activity.
Whichever fires first kills the agent's process group. Tradeoff: the idle reset
assumes the CLI streams intermediate output. codex and opencode do; claude -p,
cursor-agent -p and agy --print may emit only the final result, so a long
silent task on those can be idle-killed at 5 min — raise idleTimeoutMs /
MCP_AGENT_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS for such tasks, or rely on the total cap.
agy is the strongest case here: it emits its entire answer in one flush at the
end (measured — every line of a 12-line reply arrived at the same instant), and
the hub raises its internal --print-timeout to 48h so that agy's own 5-minute
default can never truncate a run. The idle timer is therefore agy's only
protection against a genuine hang; budget idleTimeoutMs accordingly for long
autonomous agy tasks.
While an agent runs, the hub emits MCP progress notifications to clients that
request them (_meta.progressToken) — live feedback during long runs. Note: on
Claude Code (stdio) the per-server request timeout in .mcp.json (or the
MCP_TOOL_TIMEOUT env var it honors) is a hard wall-clock that progress does
not reset (default ~28h) — raise it if you lowered it below your longest run.
Upgrading
Global install: install the new version — the pinned agent-mcp-hub command
in your MCP config picks it up on the next client start:
npm i -g agent-mcp-hub@0.6.0
npx (pinned): bump the pinned version in your MCP config — e.g. change
agent-mcp-hub@0.5.0 to agent-mcp-hub@0.6.0 everywhere.
Always-latest (not recommended for shared configs): use agent-mcp-hub@latest
instead of a pinned version. Note that npx caches by version — it may serve a
stale copy. Force a fresh fetch with npx --prefer-online agent-mcp-hub or
npx clear-npx-cache.
Pinning is reproducible and recommended for team-wide or checked-in
mcp.json files.
Development
npm install
npm test
npm run typecheck
npm run dev
npm run build
Architecture
Pure adapters (src/adapters/* — prompt → {args, stdin?}, no I/O) → one
subprocess boundary (src/exec.ts) → MCP stdio server (src/server.ts). Adding
an agent = one ~15-line adapter file + one line in src/registry.ts.
License
Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0).
Versions before 0.5.2 were released under the MIT license; that grant stands
for those versions. MPL-2.0 applies from 0.5.2 onward.