MCP Integration

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a standard protocol for connecting xbot to external tools. In plain terms: you can “bolt on” capabilities — filesystem access, databases, search engines, custom APIs — and the agent can call them directly.

Tip

Let the agent configure it for you. Say “connect a filesystem MCP server” or “I want to access my company’s API via MCP” — the agent writes the config and reloads it automatically.

Available in all sessions. Configured in ~/.xbot/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/home/user/documents"],
      "description": "Filesystem access"
    },
    "web-search": {
      "url": "http://localhost:3001/sse",
      "description": "Web search service"
    }
  }
}

Dynamically added during a conversation, scoped to the current session only:

“Temporarily add an MCP server at localhost:8080”

Once connected, the agent can use all tools exposed by the MCP server:

Tools are named as mcp_<server>_<tool>. For example, the read_file tool from a filesystem server becomes mcp_filesystem_read_file.

Note

stdio transport gotcha: When xbot runs as a system service with a minimal PATH, tools like npx/nvm may not be visible. xbot auto-resolves commands using the login shell’s PATH to avoid this.

xbot includes 20+ built-in Feishu MCP tools (Docs, Bitable, Drive, Wiki, files) that are automatically available in Feishu channels. These require user OAuth authorization before use.

The agent can dynamically manage MCP servers during conversation:

~/.xbot/mcp.json

{
  "command": "npx",              // stdio: launch command
  "args": ["-y", "some-server"], // stdio: command arguments
  "url": "http://...",           // HTTP: server address (SSE)
  "description": "What it does"  // Optional: helps the agent understand this server
}

• MCP servers run as independent processes (stdio) or connect to external services (HTTP)
• Tool execution is constrained by the sandbox configuration
• File paths are limited to workspace scope
• HTTP services should use authentication tokens where possible

• Built-in Tools — all available tools
• Skills & Agents — extend the agent
• Plugins — hooks, widgets, custom tools