MCP Server Overview

The Symposium MCP server (symposium-mcp) provides a comprehensive set of tools for AI assistants to interact with VSCode and coordinate taskspace orchestration.

Tool Categories

• IDE Integration Tools - Get selections and navigate code structure
• Code Walkthrough Tools - Create interactive code tours and explanations
• Synthetic Pull Request Tools - Generate and manage code reviews
• Taskspace Orchestration Tools - Create and coordinate collaborative workspaces
• Reference System Tools - Manage compact reference storage and retrieval
• Rust Development Tools - Explore Rust crate sources and examples

Agent Initialization System

The MCP server provides the foundation for dynamic agent initialization through the yiasou prompt system and embedded guidance resources. For complete details, see Guidance and Initialization.

Key capabilities:

• @yiasou stored prompt with taskspace context
• Embedded guidance resources like main.md and walkthrough-format.md.
  • These can fetched using the expand_reference tool from the embedded reference system.

Architecture

The MCP server operates as a bridge between AI assistants and the VSCode extension:

1. Process Discovery: Automatically discovers the parent VSCode process
2. IPC Communication: Connects to the daemon message bus via Unix socket
3. Tool Execution: Processes MCP tool calls and routes them appropriately
4. Resource Serving: Provides embedded guidance files as MCP resources
5. Dynamic Prompts: Assembles context-aware initialization prompts
6. Response Handling: Returns structured results to the AI assistant

Configuration

The server is configured through your AI assistant's MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "symposium": {
      "command": "/path/to/symposium-mcp",
      "args": ["server"]
    }
  }
}

Error Handling

All tools include comprehensive error handling:

• IPC Failures: Graceful degradation when VSCode connection is lost
• Invalid Parameters: Clear error messages for malformed requests
• Process Discovery: Fallback mechanisms for PID detection
• Resource Loading: Fallback to basic prompts when guidance unavailable
• Context Fetching: Yiasou prompt works even without taskspace context
• Test Mode: Mock responses when DIALECTIC_TEST_MODE=1 is set