dcc-mcp-server 0.17.5

Standalone dcc-mcp-server CLI binary — gateway, sidecar, stdio bridge (Rust)

dcc-mcp-server-bin — PyPI distribution blueprint

Status: blueprint — packaging files are wired but no PyPI release has shipped yet. Tracked in issue #1002 (deliverable 3 of RFC #998 Addendum A.7).

This directory packages the crates/dcc-mcp-server Rust binary as a platform-specific binary-only PyPI wheel, following the same pattern as ruff, uv, cmake, and pyright. The result is a single pip install dcc-mcp-server that drops the gateway / sidecar / translate CLI onto PATH for Python 3.7+ regardless of which DCC the user runs.

Why a separate PyPI package?

dcc-mcp-core is a PyO3 wheel — its _core.so is loaded into the host Python interpreter (mayapy / blender-python / hython). The sidecar binary, by contrast, is meant to run as its own OS process; bundling it into dcc-mcp-core would couple two artefacts with very different release cadences and ABI matrices. Splitting them is the standard pattern.

Package	Distributes	Audience
dcc-mcp-core (existing)	PyO3 wheel (_core.so + Python facade)	Skill authors, plugin/addon code running inside a DCC interpreter
dcc-mcp-server (this dir)	platform-specific Python 3.7+ binary wheels	Operators, sidecar spawners, anyone who wants a standalone gateway
dcc-mcp-<dcc> (each repo)	pure-Python plugin/addon glue	DCC plugin loaders (userSetup.py, addon register(), …)

Layout

pkg/dcc-mcp-server-bin/
├── pyproject.toml              ← maturin config, bindings = "bin"
├── python/
│   └── dcc_mcp_server/
│       └── __init__.py         ← binary_path() helper for subprocess spawn
└── README.md                   ← this file

The Rust source is not duplicated here — pyproject.toml sets manifest-path = "../../crates/dcc-mcp-server/Cargo.toml" so maturin builds the existing workspace crate.

Local build

# Build a wheel for the current platform / Python
cd pkg/dcc-mcp-server-bin/
vx pip install maturin
vx maturin build --release

# Resulting wheel lands in ../../target/wheels/dcc_mcp_server-*.whl
vx pip install ../../target/wheels/dcc_mcp_server-*.whl
dcc-mcp-server --help

The wheel uses maturin bindings = "bin", so it does not load a Python extension module and has no CPython ABI dependency. Its metadata deliberately declares Requires-Python: >=3.7 so embedded Python 3.7 hosts such as Maya 2022 can install it directly.

Cross-platform CI release

The new .github/workflows/release-server-binary.yml workflow (also part of this PR) builds wheels for:

OS	Arch	Tag
manylinux	x86_64	manylinux_2_28_x86_64
manylinux	aarch64	manylinux_2_28_aarch64
Windows	x86_64	win_amd64
Windows	arm64	win_arm64
macOS	x86_64	macosx_11_0_x86_64
macOS	arm64	macosx_11_0_arm64

The workflow triggers on tags matching dcc-mcp-server-v* so it stays independent of the existing dcc-mcp-core release cycle.

Usage from a DCC plugin

# In a Maya plugin / Blender addon, after `pip install dcc-mcp-server`:
import os, subprocess
from dcc_mcp_server import binary_path

_proc = subprocess.Popen([
    str(binary_path()),
    "sidecar",
    "--dcc", "maya",
    "--host-rpc", "commandport://127.0.0.1:6000",
    "--watch-pid", str(os.getpid()),
])

That's the entire plugin → sidecar wiring. Per-DCC HostRpcClient implementations land in their respective adapter repos.