central-mcp 0.1.0

Orchestrator-agnostic MCP hub for managing and dispatching to multiple coding agents.

central-mcp

Orchestrator-agnostic MCP hub for dispatching to multiple coding agents.

One MCP server turns any MCP-capable client (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, opencode, …) into a control plane for your portfolio of coding-agent projects. Ask in natural language, and the orchestrator routes the request to the right project's agent — non-blocking, with results reported back asynchronously.

Why

You probably use more than one coding agent. Each has its own terminal, its own session, its own logs. Switching between them is friction, and there is no shared view of what answered what.

central-mcp gives you one hub:

• Dispatch prompts to any project's agent and get responses via MCP
• Parallel work — dispatch to multiple projects and keep talking while they run
• Manage the registry with add_project / remove_project
• Orchestrate from any MCP-capable client — never locked to one

Every dispatch is a fresh subprocess in the project's cwd (e.g. claude -p "..." --continue). No long-lived processes, no screen scraping, no tmux dependency on the critical path.

Design principles

1. Orchestrator-agnostic. MCP tools are the canonical surface. Any MCP client can be the orchestrator.
2. Non-blocking dispatch. dispatch returns a dispatch_id in <100ms. Results arrive asynchronously. The conversation never freezes.
3. Dispatch-router preamble. The orchestrator is instructed to be a pure router — parse the project name, call dispatch, move on. This minimizes LLM reasoning latency to ~1-2 seconds per turn.
4. File-based state. registry.yaml is the single source of truth.

Status

Pre-release. Install from a local checkout with uv tool install --editable ..

Quickstart

Requires uv. (tmux only if you want the optional observation layer.)

# 1. Clone and install (editable, dev mode)
git clone https://github.com/andy5090/central-mcp.git ~/Projects/central-mcp
cd ~/Projects/central-mcp
uv tool install --editable .

# 2. Scaffold an empty registry at ~/.central-mcp/registry.yaml
central-mcp init

# 3. Register central-mcp with your MCP client(s) — once per client
central-mcp install claude    # adds to Claude Code MCP config
central-mcp install codex     # patches ~/.codex/config.toml
central-mcp install gemini    # patches ~/.gemini/settings.json
central-mcp install opencode  # patches ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json

# 4. Launch the orchestrator
central-mcp run

Inside the orchestrator session, speak naturally:

• "Add ~/Projects/my-app to the hub, agent=claude."
• "What projects do I have?"
• "Send this to my-app: add error handling to the auth module."
• "Also send to gluecut-dawg: summarize the project structure."

The orchestrator calls dispatch for each request and continues the conversation immediately — you don't wait. Results arrive through three channels:

• Piggyback (automatic): every MCP tool response includes a completed_dispatches array with any results that finished since the last call.
• Background poll (best-effort): a subagent polls check_dispatch every 3 seconds and reports automatically when done.
• User-driven check (100% reliable): ask "any updates?" anytime.

Multiple dispatches run in parallel.

MCP tools

central-mcp exposes 10 tools under the server name central:

Tool	Blocking?	Purpose
list_projects	sync	Enumerate the registry.
project_status	sync	Metadata for one project.
dispatch	<100ms	Send a prompt to a project's agent. Supports per-dispatch agent override and fallback chain. Returns dispatch_id immediately.
check_dispatch	sync	Poll a dispatch — running / complete / error with full output.
list_dispatches	sync	All active + recently completed dispatches.
cancel_dispatch	sync	Abort a running dispatch.
dispatch_history	sync	Persistent history of past dispatches (survives restarts).
add_project	sync	Register a new project. Validates agent name. Auto-trusts codex dirs.
update_project	sync	Change an existing project's agent, description, tags, bypass, or fallback.
remove_project	sync	Unregister a project.

How dispatch works

dispatch("my-app", "add error handling to auth")
  → subprocess.Popen(["claude", "-p", "...", "--continue"], cwd="~/Projects/my-app")
  → returns {dispatch_id: "a1b2c3d4"} in <100ms
  → background thread captures stdout when process exits
  → check_dispatch("a1b2c3d4") → {status: "complete", output: "...", duration_sec: 45}

Supported agents

Agent	Non-interactive invocation	Bypass flag
claude	claude -p "<prompt>" --continue	--dangerously-skip-permissions
codex	codex exec "<prompt>"	--dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox
gemini	gemini -p "<prompt>"	--yolo
droid	droid exec "<prompt>"	--skip-permissions-unsafe
opencode	opencode run "<prompt>" --continue	--dangerously-skip-permissions

Agent names are validated at registration time — typos like cursor-agent are caught immediately, not at dispatch time.

Switching agents mid-project

You can change a project's registered agent any time — useful when a given codebase turns out to pair better with a different CLI:

update_project(name="my-app", agent="codex")

update_project also accepts description, tags, bypass, and fallback — omitted fields stay untouched. Switching to codex auto-adds the project dir to ~/.codex/config.toml trust list.

One-shot agent override

Sometimes you want to route one task to a different agent without mutating the registry — e.g. a design-heavy task goes to a design-strong agent while the project stays on its usual one:

dispatch(name="my-app", prompt="...", agent="codex")

The registry entry is untouched. Next dispatch without agent= goes back to the project's saved agent.

Fallback chain on failure

If the primary agent exits non-zero (rate limit, token cap, crash), central-mcp can transparently retry with a backup:

# per-dispatch (not persisted):
dispatch(name="my-app", prompt="...", fallback=["codex", "gemini"])

# save a default for this project:
update_project(name="my-app", fallback=["codex", "gemini"])

The result reports which agent actually produced output (agent_used), whether a fallback was triggered (fallback_used), and the full list of attempts. Timeouts are not retried — the user should see them directly rather than burn the whole chain on a stuck agent.

Pass fallback=[] to explicitly disable the saved chain for a one-shot dispatch.

Per-project bypass mode

On the first dispatch to a project, central-mcp asks: "Run with full permissions (bypass) or restricted?" The choice is saved to registry.yaml for all future dispatches. Change it anytime by passing bypass=true or bypass=false explicitly.

If bypass=false and the agent hits a permission wall, the orchestrator will suggest either re-dispatching with bypass=true or using the tmux observation layer for interactive approval.

Dispatch history

Every completed dispatch is logged to ~/.central-mcp/history/<project>.jsonl — survives server restarts. Query with:

dispatch_history()                # last 10 across all projects
dispatch_history(name="my-app")   # last 10 for one project
dispatch_history(n=50)            # last 50

Performance tip: use a faster model for the orchestrator

The orchestrator's job is just routing — it doesn't need top-tier reasoning:

Orchestrator client	Tip
Claude Code	/model sonnet — ~1-2s/turn vs ~5-8s on Opus
Codex CLI	Use a lighter model (e.g. -spark variant) via /model or config.toml
Gemini CLI	Use Flash instead of Pro if available via model config
opencode	Select a faster model via -m provider/model or in opencode.json

The sub-agent model is independent — each dispatch spawns its own process with whatever model the project's agent defaults to.

CLI reference

central-mcp                        # no-arg → run MCP server on stdio
central-mcp serve                  # same, explicit
central-mcp run [--agent X] [--pick] [--bypass]  # launch orchestrator
central-mcp install CLIENT         # register with claude | codex | gemini | opencode
central-mcp alias [NAME]           # short-name symlink (default: cmcp)
central-mcp unalias [NAME]
central-mcp init [PATH]            # scaffold registry.yaml (default: ~/.central-mcp)
central-mcp add NAME PATH [--agent claude|codex|gemini|droid|opencode]
central-mcp remove NAME
central-mcp list                   # one-line registry dump
central-mcp brief                  # orchestrator-ready markdown snapshot
central-mcp up                     # optional tmux observation (one pane per project)
central-mcp down                   # kill observation session

Optional observation layer

central-mcp up creates a tmux session central with one interactive pane per project. Cycle panes with Ctrl+b n / Ctrl+b <digit>. This is purely visual — the MCP dispatch path never reads from or writes to these panes. Kill with central-mcp down without affecting anything.

Registry resolution

Three-level cascade:

1. $CENTRAL_MCP_REGISTRY (explicit override)
2. ./registry.yaml in cwd (per-project override)
3. $HOME/.central-mcp/registry.yaml (global default)

The registry is per-user state — never commit it.

Changing the orchestrator

central-mcp run --pick         # re-run picker, save new choice
central-mcp run --agent codex  # one-off override
$EDITOR ~/.central-mcp/config.toml

Environment variables

• CENTRAL_MCP_HOME — user-state dir (default: ~/.central-mcp)
• CENTRAL_MCP_REGISTRY — registry path override

Development

uv tool install --editable .
uv run --group dev pytest             # 97 unit tests (fast, no real CLIs)
uv run --group dev pytest -m live     # 15 live tests — shell out to real agent binaries
                                      # (claude/codex/gemini/droid); each case skips
                                      # cleanly if that binary isn't on PATH

License

MIT.