databricks-mason

Mason is an experimental CLI for Databricks custom agent preview APIs and deployments. It manages memory, sessions, tracing, and deployments from one authenticated command.

The underlying APIs are in preview and may need workspace enablement.

Installation

From PyPI:

pip install databricks-mason

From source:

pip install 'git+https://github.com/databricks/databricks-ai-bridge.git#subdirectory=integrations/mason'

For tracing commands, install Mason with tracing extras:

pip install 'databricks-mason[tracing]'

Shell completion

Add this to ~/.zshrc:

eval "$(_MASON_COMPLETE=zsh_source mason)"

Authentication

Mason uses Databricks authentication. Ask Mason to authenticate and remember a named profile:

mason login --profile <profile>
mason sessions stores list

mason login validates existing credentials first. If credentials are missing or rejected in an interactive terminal, Mason runs databricks auth login --profile <profile>, revalidates the profile, and stores the selection in ~/.mason/config.json. This browser-based setup requires the Databricks CLI. In non-interactive environments, authenticate the profile before running Mason. mason logout forgets the saved selection without revoking the underlying credentials.

If Databricks SDK default authentication is already configured, you can skip mason login. You can also pass the global --profile/-p option before an individual command, for example mason --profile <profile> mcp list. Use --output json for scripting.

Python SDK

The same memory and session APIs are available programmatically through MasonClient, which authenticates exactly like the CLI (a .databrickscfg profile or the SDK's default resolution):

from databricks_mason import MasonClient

client = MasonClient(profile="my-workspace")  # or MasonClient() for default auth

store = client.create_memory_store("my-store")
print(store.name, store.display_name)  # typed attribute access

client.create_memory_entry("my-store", actor_id="alice", path="/notes/1.md", content="hi")
for entry in client.list_memory_entries("my-store", actor_id="alice").entries:
    print(entry.path, entry.content)

Each method maps to one /api/agents/v1 operation. Responses come back as typed models (MemoryStore, Session, SessionItemList, ...) that expose attribute accessors (store.name) while remaining plain dicts underneath — so store["name"], json.dumps(store), and any new server-side fields keep working. API errors raise databricks_mason.AgentCliError. Deployment, sandbox, and tracing remain CLI-only.

Commands

mason [-p <profile>] [-o text|json]
  login        [--profile P]
  logout
  init         [--framework openai|langgraph] [--disable-chat-app]
               [--profile P] [--repo URL] [--ref REF] [directory]
  dev          [--source PATH] [--prepare-environment] [--app-port PORT]
               [--memory/-m N] [--session/-s N]
               [--with-traces C.S] [--no-create-stores]
  memory
    stores     create | list | get | update | delete
    entries    create | get | list | search | update | delete
  sessions     create | list | get | update | delete | fork
    stores     create | list | get | update | delete
    items      list | append | pop | clear
  tracing
    setup      --catalog C --schema S [--experiment E]
    list | get | instrument
  mcp
    list             [--schema CATALOG.SCHEMA]
  tools
    add sandbox      --scope SCOPE [--scope SCOPE ...] [--source PATH]
    add mcp          SERVICE [--name NAME] [--source PATH]
    add uc-function  FUNCTION [--name NAME] [--source PATH]
    add python       NAME [--source PATH]
    list             [--source PATH]
  deploy       <name> --source PATH [--memory/-m N]
               [--session/-s N] [--actor-id ID]
               [--with-traces C.S] [--no-create-stores]
  deployments  list | get | logs | start | stop | delete

Command help

Use the conventional help flag at any command level. Every command's help includes runnable examples:

mason --help
mason deploy --help
mason sessions items append --help

For the shortest path from a blank directory to a running and deployed agent:

mason login --profile <profile>
mason init my-agent
cd my-agent
mason dev
mason deploy my-agent

Agent tools

mason init writes portable tool intent to agent.toml and template provenance to .mason/project.toml. The manifest runtime is currently implemented only by the in-repository agent-langgraph template; mason tools add fails explicitly for other frameworks until they provide an adapter at the same runtime seam.

Remote tools update only agent.toml; they do not generate framework source. The LangGraph runtime loads the manifest and materializes its native MCP tools when the agent runs, so a direct manifest edit and a CLI edit have the same behavior:

mason tools add sandbox --scope table:samples.nyctaxi.trips
mason tools add mcp system.ai.web_search
mason tools add uc-function catalog.schema.lookup_ticket
mason tools add python lookup-ticket
mason tools remove mcp system.ai.web_search
mason tools list

For MCP services, the remove command accepts the same service name as the add command. You can also remove any binding by the ID shown in mason tools list, for example mason tools remove web_search. Removal updates only agent.toml; Python source and test files remain user-owned.

Discover the MCP Services available to your user before adding one. By default Mason lists the Databricks-managed services in system.ai; pass --schema catalog.schema for another Unity Catalog schema. Text output includes a copyable add command, while --output json returns normalized service records for scripts:

mason mcp list
mason mcp list --schema main.tools

The Python command additionally creates user-owned agent/tools/<name>.py and tests/tools/test_<name>.py files using the LangGraph-native @tool decorator. mason dev and mason deploy preserve agent.toml; they do not generate or patch agent source.

Sandbox scopes default to read-only access. Repeat --scope to allow more than one resource, use volume: or workspace: for those resource types, and use --permission read_write only when the agent needs writes. Every sandbox call carries this fixed downscope in MCP _meta, outside the tool arguments controlled by the model.

Initialize the chat app demo

The chat app is a LangGraph-specific init overlay, not a command that mutates an existing project. It is included by default for --framework langgraph; pass --disable-chat-app to scaffold the API-only backend instead.

mason init --framework langgraph \
  --profile <profile> \
  ./my-agent
cd ./my-agent
uv run start-server

The chat app includes synchronous, SSE streaming, background polling, Session Store, Memory Store, and HITL resume UI. The framework-specific overlay adds ui/, runtime/ui.py, the UI-enabled runtime/main.py, and UI tests.

For the full deployed demo, connect both managed stores:

mason --profile <profile> deploy mason-agent-demo --source . \
  --session mason-demo-sessions \
  --memory mason-demo-memory \
  --actor-id alice

(Missing stores are created automatically; pass --no-create-stores to require they already exist.)

The Databricks Apps __Host-databricks-app-router cookie is both the sticky routing key and the application session id. The browser sends it automatically; API clients must reuse it as a cookie. Request bodies never carry session_id. A localhost-only mason-local-session cookie provides the same behavior outside Databricks Apps. TODO: move to X-Routing-Key when Apps supports it.

The generated README.md documents every request the client makes: config discovery, sync and SSE invocations, background submission and polling, session transcript loading, HITL resume, and memory entry operations. Capability colors are automatic from /api/demo/config; only the sync/streaming/background transport selector is manual.