edgelens-mcp

Model Context Protocol server that exposes the EdgeLens SDK as LLM tools. Drop into Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any other MCP host and the LLM can allocate cameras, deploy models, run inference, and SSH the device directly.

Install

pip install edgelens-mcp
# or, with uv:
uv tool install edgelens-mcp

Adds an edgelens-mcp command to your PATH.

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "edgelens": {
      "command": "edgelens-mcp",
      "env": {
        "EDGELENS_API_KEY": "el_test_yourkey"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The hammer icon shows the EdgeLens tools.

Claude Code

Add to ~/.claude/mcp.json (or project-local .mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "edgelens": {
      "command": "edgelens-mcp",
      "env": {
        "EDGELENS_API_KEY": "el_test_yourkey"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "edgelens": {
      "command": "edgelens-mcp",
      "env": {
        "EDGELENS_API_KEY": "el_test_yourkey"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tools

Once connected, the host gets these tools (same surface as the SDK and CLI):

Session lifecycle

Every tool acts only on sessions this server process created; see Session scope.

Device ops

Display

Inference (stock OS)

Current-session pattern

After create_session, follow-up tools default to that session — you don't have to thread the id through every call. Pass session_id explicitly only when working with multiple concurrent sessions in one conversation.

user:    "spin me up a camera"
claude:  → create_session(device_type="recamera-2002", os="stock-os")
         ← {"id": "sess_abc", "status": "ready", "device": {...}}
user:    "what's the kernel version?"
claude:  → exec_command(command="uname -r")
         ← {"stdout": "5.10.10-edgelens", ...}

Session scope

By default every tool acts only on sessions this server process created with create_session. A session_id it did not create is refused with an error that names the opt-in, and the server never fetches it from the API. Your API key may reach sessions owned by teammates on a shared account; without this scope, a model handed or guessing such an id could release it or run commands on its device.

To resume a session created elsewhere (another process, the CLI, a teammate), set EDGELENS_MCP_ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SESSIONS=1 in the host's env block. The server then fetches any id the API key can reach, and the model can release or act on it.

Exec

exec_command is off by default. To enable it, set EDGELENS_MCP_EXEC_ENABLED=1 in the host's env block.

Enabling exec gives the model an unrestricted shell on the device. No command is filtered: anything the device user can run, including destructive commands, will run. A pattern filter over a shell command line cannot be made complete (quoting, absolute paths, variables and encodings all get past one), so the server does not pretend to have one. Enable exec only for a session you are prepared to lose, and rely on your MCP host's per-call approval if you want a human to see each command.

Environment

Transport

This server speaks stdio — the MCP host spawns it as a subprocess.

A hosted streamable-HTTP variant (for remote-MCP integrations like claude.ai web) is planned. Same tool code, different transport — see the roadmap.

Develop

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e "../../core/python"   # editable SDK core (not yet on PyPI)
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

The mcp dependency is pinned <2 (2.x renamed FastMCP → MCPServer). The tests call each tool function directly (FastMCP's @mcp.tool() returns the function unchanged) and read tool annotations from server.mcp._tool_manager.

If your environment can't reach PyPI, run the suite in a container:

docker run --rm -e HOME=/tmp -v "$PWD/../..:/sdk:ro" python:3.11-slim sh -c '
  cd /tmp && cp -r /sdk/core/python core && cp -r /sdk/integrations/mcp mcp
  rm -rf core/.venv mcp/.venv && python -m venv v && . v/bin/activate
  pip install -q "mcp[cli]>=1.2,<2" pytest pytest-asyncio && pip install -q ./core ./mcp
  python -m pytest mcp/tests -q'

Pairs with the Python SDK, CLI, and pytest plugin.