mcp: credentials leave the tree, and sub-agents lose the task board ...

Five tracked configs (gnexus-creds, gntodo, hard-panel, synapse, tgclient)
carried live bearer tokens — in git, in every clone, and handed to the admin
client by GET /admin/mcp/config. They now name a variable, and the value lives
in the service .env (chmod 600, untracked).

Substitution happens once, at transport open, next to the project-relative
path resolution: that is the single place a transport is built, so every
stored and serialised config stays placeholder-only and save_mcp_servers —
reached by create_mcp_server and PUT /admin/mcp/config — cannot write a secret
back into a tracked file. A variable that is not set refuses the connection
instead of dropping the header, which would fail open: a server may answer an
unauthenticated request as an anonymous user rather than returning 401.

Sub-agents also drop gntodo, gnexus-creds, tgclient and synapse from their
scopes, and the runner injects a scope anchor unconditionally — a sub-agent
asked to echo one word had picked a project off the task board and researched
it for forty iterations.

Docs: docs/mcp.md#secrets, a migration recipe in deploy/UPDATE.md, the variable
names in .env.example and deploy/env.template, and a regression guard over the
tracked configs.

The old values stay in git history; rotating all five at their sources is the
remediation, not a follow-up.

subagents, secrets: an honest result contract, and two leaks closed ...

A pass over the sub-agent system, plus the two findings from the previous one.

Leaks:

- `redact_args` / `is_sensitive_key` (navi/tools/_internal/redact.py) mask
  credential-shaped keys at every log site that prints tool arguments — by key
  name, for all tools, so a future MCP tool is covered without declaring
  anything. ssh_exec passwords were sitting in the prod journal in plaintext.
- `mcp_servers.d/*.json` are tracked in git and carried the scaffolding
  machine's absolute paths, so navi-3d/navi-web silently vanished from the
  toolset off that machine. They now hold project-relative paths, resolved in
  `McpClient.open_transport` — not at load time, because create_mcp_server
  round-trips every config file through save_mcp_servers.

Sub-agent result contract:

- `run_ephemeral` returns a `SubAgentOutcome` (text + status: ok, timeout,
  max_iterations, thinking_stall, user_stop, context_overflow) instead of
  `(text, bool)`. Every exit routes through `SubAgentRunner._finish`, so token
  accounting is never dropped and a partial run always carries a progress
  report — the stop-after-stream path used to return a bare string.
- `spawn_agent` renders its header from the status. Before this, every short
  run reached the parent as "hit iteration limit", and the parent repeats that
  diagnosis to the user — a timeout was reported as an iteration limit.
- `ContextTooLargeError` no longer kills a sub-agent: the parent compresses its
  own context, a sub-agent has no session to compress into, so it stops with
  `context_overflow` and hands back what it did rather than surfacing as
  "Sub-agent failed: …" with the whole run discarded.
- The result is capped at 8000 chars (head and tail kept) so a long run cannot
  flood the parent's context, and tool arguments in the progress report go
  through `redact_args`.
- The navi-3d calling convention left the runner for the server's own tool
  schemas — a generic runner should not know one MCP server's path shapes.
- Validation moved inside spawn_agent's try: a bad argument is a clean
  ToolResult the model can read, not an exception in the parent's loop.

Tests: 1636 passed, 1 skipped. New: SubAgentOutcome paths and headers, result
truncation, context overflow, clean argument failures.

tools, mcp: a description is a hook, not a manual ...

With 24 tools in a profile the schemas are the largest fixed block of every
request, and they are paid for whether or not the tool is called. Eleven of
them carried a manual's worth of prose in their `description` — examples,
error tables, "common mistakes", the mechanics of the file areas. Reading
them against the manuals first, the manuals already held all of it, and
richer: this was duplication sitting in the one place the model cannot avoid
reading, not knowledge that had nowhere else to live. So the descriptions
became selection hooks — what the tool is for, when to pick it over its
neighbour, and the one rule that cannot wait — and the detail moved to
tool_manual("<tool>"), which costs nothing until the tool is actually in
play.

filesystem, spawn_agent, schedule_recall, manage_recall, scratchpad, plan,
share_file, content_publish, reflect, todo and peer. Descriptions drop from
18.4 KB to 11.5 KB, those tools' schemas from 25.5 KB to 16.8 KB, and a
profile's whole native toolset from 38.3 KB to 29.6 KB (server_admin,
developer; secretary 33.7 → 25.0, navi_code 32.9 → 25.9, tool_developer
37.9 → 29.2, modeler_3d 33.4 → 24.8). Stated as a budget rather than a byte
count: roughly 4k tokens of the model's window per request, back.

Two things were deliberately not shortened. The filesystem edit ladder
(`edit` → `edit_lines` → `smart_edit`, last resort, costs an LLM call) and
todo's mandatory `validation` on `done` both exist to prevent an extra
round trip; a shorter description there would trade tokens for turns. What
todo lost is the prose around the rule, not the rule. `enabled.json` was
left alone too: weather, gmail and get_current_datetime are opt-in and the
DB shows 12, 16 and 40 calls, so they are opt-in tools that are actually
used.

peer had no manual at all, which is how this surfaced: its description was
the only documentation the tool had. manuals/peer.md is now written from
the tool and its /peer route — the ask/status/list actions, the fact that
the hive is only a phone book and the question travels peer-to-peer, the
one-concurrent-answer semaphore, the two independent recursion guards, and
the six error codes.

The MCP server instructions leave the system prompt the same way. They were
8 KB of always-present prose per request, most of it workflow detail the
model only needs when it is about to use that server. Each server now
contributes one line — a new optional `summary` field in mcp_servers.d/*.json,
defaulting to the first sentence of its `instructions` — and
tool_manual("<server>") returns the full text plus the tool names the server
declares. server_admin's MCP block goes from 8.3 KB to 1.3 KB, secretary's
from 8.1 to 1.2. tool_manual learned to answer for a server (a tool name
still wins over a server of the same name, and dash/underscore spelling is
tolerated), and the index names the servers alongside the tools.

One judgement call worth recording: gnexus-book's and navi-web's
instructions end in an absolute "NEVER bypass these tools with filesystem,
terminal or code_exec" rule. Moving that on demand would have been a
behavioural regression dressed as a token saving, so those two `summary`
fields carry the prohibition verbatim alongside the hook, and it stays
always visible.

docs/tools.md gains a section on the split (a description is paid for every
request, a manual only when the tool is used), which is where the next
person will look before trimming a description back into a manual.

Full suite green (1577 passed, 1 skipped). No frontend change and no new
dependency, so the deploy is a pull and a restart.

mcp: point navi_ui at the port its server actually binds ...

navi_ui is navi's own MCP server (navi/mcp/ui_server), started in-process on
NAVI_UI_MCP_PORT — 8098. The config still carried the pre-8099/8098 default,
localhost:8001, where nothing has listened for a long time: on prod the connect
fails on every start and render_component only ever appeared as an unregistered
phantom in list_tools.

The URL now names the loopback literal rather than "localhost", which can
resolve to ::1 while the server binds IPv4 only.

Three tests assert the file against the live FastMCP object (host, port, path,
transport) instead of a second copy of the setting — with the old URL two of
them fail, so the drift that produced this cannot come back unnoticed.

config: give tgclient the shared key it needs to handshake ...

The server declares a user_key slot and no shared credential, so the
startup handshake went out unauthenticated, got a 401, and the client
was marked disconnected — which kept its tools out of the registry
entirely, groups or no groups. The shared key now backs the handshake
and stays the fallback: a personal key from /mcp-keys still wins.

config: tool groups for tgclient and synapse ...

Both servers declare no groups, so every profile asking for "tgclient":
["read", "write"] resolved to nothing: resolve_group reads the static
config, returned [], and no mcp__tgclient__* name ever reached the agent.
Worse, the server's own instructions did reach it — they are selected by
server name, not by group — so the model was told about tools it did not
have. synapse is not exposed by any profile, so its groups change nothing
today; without them, exposing it would repeat the same failure.

read  — observe only.
write — changes to sources, types, targets and routing rules.
admin — hub-wide knobs, not routing: issuing and revoking a source's API
        key, and settings overrides on top of .env. The same fence
        gnexus-book puts around its service-operator tools.

config: point the tgclient MCP server at the live host ...

The committed value was the local dev address (localhost:8710, where
~/Projects/tgclient-mcp serves it) and the server ran with the wrong public
host, so the tools never connected. Both clones now use
https://tgclientmcp.gnexus.space/mcp.

No default headers: the key is per-user by design (BYOD settings field), and
until one is entered the server answers 401.

config: add the gntodo MCP server

config: capture the live server configuration ...

Profiles gain the gntodo / gnexus-book / gnexus-creds scopes for agent and
subagent runs, refreshed model lists, and write access where the live setup
has it. MCP server configs pick up their user_key slots, gnexus-book learns
delete_pending_change, and the hard-panel / synapse / tgclient servers join
the tree.

Merge origin/master (b7743f8): PWA icons, MCP settings tab, android push, runbook

MCP settings tab: list every connected server, slot only where declared ...

The tab was empty on every install: it listed only servers whose config
declares a `user_key` slot, and no config declared one — which read as
"no MCP servers connected" even though five are wired to profiles.

- GET /mcp-keys now returns every server referenced by at least one
  profile, keyed ones first, with `accepts_user_key`, the slot location
  (null when there is none) and the profile ids that connect it. The
  per-user key store is skipped entirely when nothing has a slot.
- gnexus-creds declares `user_key: {header: Authorization, prefix:
  "Bearer "}` — it is the one server carrying a shared credential, so its
  personal-key field is now real: users with a key run under their own,
  users without one fall back to the shared default.
- The panel lists all servers (transport + profiles), dims the keyless
  rows, and shows a key input only for slotted ones, spelling out the
  shared-key fallback.

docs/api.md and docs/mcp.md updated; backend 1367 passed, webclient 148.

.

feat: integrate navi_ui MCP server (card_grid + form) into master ...

Port the internal navi_ui MCP server from the vmkdemo branch (it never
landed on master). The server exposes render_component, which returns a
structured JSON envelope; navi/mcp/tools.py extracts metadata.ui_component
onto the role="tool" message, and the webclient renders the component
(card_grid, form) inline inside the assistant turn.

Backend
- navi/mcp/ui_server/: FastMCP server + component registry with card_grid
  and form components (pydantic-validated payloads, LLM-friendly schema docs)
- mcp_servers.d/navi_ui.json: streamable_http config, group "ui"
- config.py: navi_ui_mcp_enabled/host/port flags
- main.py: start UI server in lifespan (task + wait-for-ready + cancel)
- mcp/tools.py: navi_ui envelope parsing; "Error:" results surface as
  failed tool calls so the UI card is not green
- orchestrator.py + agent.py: run_stream(hidden=) for form submissions
  (single is_display=False, is_context=True user message)
- api/websocket.py: extract _start_agent_run helper, add form_submit
  branch that delivers submitted form values as a hidden user message
- profiles/secretary: enable navi_ui "ui" group (agent + subagent)
- .env.example: NAVI_UI_MCP_* flags
- tests/unit/mcp/test_ui_server.py

Webclient
- components/ui/{registry.js,CardGrid.vue,Form.vue}: auto-discovered
  renderers (snake_case <-> PascalCase aliasing)
- components/messages/UiComponentCard.vue: wrapper rendered in
  AssistantMessage when entry.kind === 'ui_component'
- stores/chat.js: extract ui_component from tool_call metadata in both
  live stream and history-replay paths
- composables/useWebSocket.js: note that ui_component rides tool_call
- tests/unit/components/ui/* (17 tests)
- dist rebuilt

Excluded from the vmkdemo port: the stale single-file navi/mcp/ui_server.py
duplicate, the realtor profile, and the vmk_data server (unrelated real
estate work that was interleaved with navi_ui on vmkdemo).

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

Merge branch 'master' of https://git.gnexus.space/git/root/navi-1

Update gnexus-creds MCP instructions: require tags, category, and allow_mcp ...

- Add rule to always include `tags` and `category` when creating secrets
- Add rule to always set `allow_mcp=true` so secrets remain visible through MCP

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Merge branch 'master' of https://git.gnexus.space/git/root/navi-1

Add MCP streamable_http transport, integrate gnexus-creds, and document headless nodes ...

- navi/mcp/client.py: add streamable_http transport via httpx + mcp.client.streamable_http
- navi/mcp/config.py: add "streamable_http" to transport literal and is_streamable_http property
- mcp_servers.d/gnexus-creds.json: new MCP server config with overlay instructions for secret workflow
- docs/future_headless_nodes.md: architecture exploration for headless Navi node swarm

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

merge

Migrate MCP tool naming from mcp:server:tool to mcp__server__tool ...

The colon separator (mcp:server:tool) confuses many LLMs during
tool-calling because colons appear in schemas and URLs. Switch to
double-underscore separator (mcp__server__tool) for robust parsing.

Key changes:
- navi/mcp/tools.py: add build_mcp_name(), parse_mcp_name(), is_mcp_tool()
- navi/core/tool_executor.py: update _resolve_tool() with new helpers
  and legacy colon fallback for old sessions
- navi/core/tool_utils.py, subagent_runner.py: use build_mcp_name()
- navi/api/routes/{admin,agents}.py: prefix via build_mcp_name()
- navi/tools/{list_tools,reload_tools}.py: migrated
- All profile configs + system_prompt.txt: replace mcp: with mcp__
- manuals/{model_3d,lint_scad,render_3d,spawn_agent}.md: updated
- mcp_servers.d/gnexus-book.json: instructions updated
- docs/{api,profiles,tools,mechanics,visual.html}: updated
- tests: test_tool_executor.py and test_mcp.py aligned

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

chore: remove test MCP servers from repo ...

project_health and time_toolkit were created for development testing
and should not be part of the committed codebase.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

refactor: migrate MCP config to directory-based mcp_servers.d ...

Replaces monolithic mcp_servers.json with per-server files in
mcp_servers.d/<name>.json. Filename stem becomes the server name.

- load_mcp_servers() reads directory globs, auto-migrates legacy file
- save_mcp_servers() writes per-server files, cleans up stale ones
- Update docstrings in manager.py and context_builder.py

Auto-migration: existing servers (gnexus-book, navi-3d, navi-web) plus
new ones (project_health, time_toolkit) now live in mcp_servers.d/.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>