mcp-beads

MCP server for beads issue tracker and agentic memory system. Enables AI agents to manage tasks using beads CLI through Model Context Protocol.

Installing

Option 1: Using uvx (Recommended)

No installation required - UV runs it on-demand:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "beads": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-beads"]
    }
  }
}

Benefits:

• No global installation needed
• Always uses latest version (or pin with uvx mcp-beads@0.30.0)
• UV handles caching automatically

Option 2: Using uv tool install

Install permanently to PATH:

uv tool install mcp-beads

Then configure Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "beads": {
      "command": "mcp-beads"
    }
  }
}

Option 3: Development Installation

For development, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/shaneholloman/beads
cd beads/adapters/mcp
uv sync

Then use in Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "beads": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/path/to/mcp-beads",
        "run",
        "mcp-beads"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Environment Variables (all optional):

• BEADS_USE_DAEMON - Use daemon RPC instead of CLI (default: 1, set to 0 to disable)
• BEADS_PATH - Path to beads executable (default: ~/.local/bin/beads)
• BEADS_DB - Path to beads database file (default: auto-discover from cwd)
• BEADS_WORKING_DIR - Working directory for beads commands (default: $PWD or current directory). Used for multi-repo setups - see below
• BEADS_ACTOR - Actor name for audit trail (default: $USER)
• BEADS_NO_AUTO_FLUSH - Disable automatic JSONL sync (default: false)
• BEADS_NO_AUTO_IMPORT - Disable automatic JSONL import (default: false)

Multi-Repository Setup

Recommended: Use a single MCP server instance for all beads projects - it automatically routes to per-project local daemons.

Single MCP Server (Recommended)

Simple config - works for all projects:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "beads": {
      "command": "mcp-beads"
    }
  }
}

How it works (LSP model):

1. MCP server checks for local daemon socket (.beads/beads.sock) in your current workspace
2. Routes requests to the per-project daemon based on working directory
3. Auto-starts the local daemon if not running
4. Each project gets its own isolated daemon serving only its database

Architecture:

MCP Server (one instance)
    ↓
Per-Project Daemons (one per workspace)
    ↓
SQLite Databases (complete isolation)

Why per-project daemons?

• ✔ Complete database isolation between projects
• ✔ No cross-project pollution or git worktree conflicts
• ✔ Simpler mental model: one project = one database = one daemon
• ✔ Follows LSP (Language Server Protocol) architecture
• ✔ One MCP config works for unlimited projects

Note: Global daemon support was removed in v0.16.0 to prevent cross-project database pollution.

Alternative: Per-Project MCP Instances (Not Recommended)

Configure separate MCP servers for specific projects using BEADS_WORKING_DIR:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "beads-webapp": {
      "command": "mcp-beads",
      "env": {
        "BEADS_WORKING_DIR": "/Users/yourname/projects/webapp"
      }
    },
    "beads-api": {
      "command": "mcp-beads",
      "env": {
        "BEADS_WORKING_DIR": "/Users/yourname/projects/api"
      }
    }
  }
}

WARNING: Problem: AI may select the wrong MCP server for your workspace, causing commands to operate on the wrong database. Use single MCP server instead.

Multi-Project Support

The MCP server supports managing multiple beads projects in a single session using per-request workspace routing.

Using workspace_root Parameter

Every tool accepts an optional workspace_root parameter for explicit project targeting:

# Query issues from different projects concurrently
results = await asyncio.gather(
    beads_ready_work(workspace_root="/Users/you/project-a"),
    beads_ready_work(workspace_root="/Users/you/project-b"),
)

# Create issue in specific project
await beads_create_issue(
    title="Fix auth bug",
    priority=1,
    workspace_root="/Users/you/project-a"
)

Architecture

Connection Pool: The MCP server maintains a connection pool keyed by canonical workspace path:

• Each workspace gets its own daemon socket connection
• Paths are canonicalized (symlinks resolved, git toplevel detected)
• Concurrent requests use asyncio.Lock to prevent race conditions
• No LRU eviction (keeps all connections open for session)

ContextVar Routing: Per-request workspace context is managed via Python's ContextVar:

• Each tool call sets the workspace for its duration
• Properly isolated for concurrent calls (no cross-contamination)
• Falls back to BEADS_WORKING_DIR if workspace_root not provided

Path Canonicalization:

• Symlinks are resolved to physical paths (prevents duplicate connections)
• Git submodules with .beads directories use local context
• Git toplevel is used for non-initialized directories
• Results are cached for performance

Backward Compatibility

The set_context() tool still works and sets a default workspace:

# Old way (still supported)
await set_context(workspace_root="/Users/you/project-a")
await beads_ready_work()  # Uses project-a

# New way (more flexible)
await beads_ready_work(workspace_root="/Users/you/project-a")

Concurrency Gotchas

WARNING: IMPORTANT: Tool implementations must NOT spawn background tasks using asyncio.create_task().

Why? ContextVar doesn't propagate to spawned tasks, which can cause cross-project data leakage.

Solution: Keep all tool logic synchronous or use sequential await calls.

Troubleshooting

Symlink aliasing: Different paths to same project are deduplicated automatically via realpath.

Submodule handling: Submodules with their own .beads directory are treated as separate projects.

Stale sockets: Currently no health checks. Phase 2 will add retry-on-failure if monitoring shows need.

Version mismatches: Daemon version is auto-checked since v0.16.0. Mismatched daemons are automatically restarted.

Features

Resource:

• beads://quickstart - Quickstart guide for using beads

Tools (all support workspace_root parameter):

• init - Initialize beads in current directory
• create - Create new issue (bug, feature, task, epic, chore)
• list - List issues with filters (status, priority, type, assignee)
• ready - Find tasks with no blockers ready to work on
• show - Show detailed issue info including dependencies
• update - Update issue (status, priority, design, notes, etc). Note: status="closed" or status="open" automatically route to close or reopen tools to respect approval workflows
• close - Close completed issue
• dep - Add dependency (blocks, related, parent-child, discovered-from)
• blocked - Get blocked issues
• stats - Get project statistics
• reopen - Reopen a closed issue with optional reason
• set_context - Set default workspace for subsequent calls (backward compatibility)
• where_am_i - Show current workspace context and database path
• debug_env - Debug tool to show environment and working directory information

Development

Run MCP inspector:

# inside mcp-beads dir
uv run fastmcp dev src/beads_mcp/server.py

Type checking:

uv run ty check src/

Linting and formatting:

uv run ruff check src/beads_mcp
uv run ruff format src/beads_mcp

Testing

Run all tests:

uv run pytest

With coverage:

uv run pytest --cov=beads_mcp tests/

Test suite includes both mocked unit tests and integration tests with real beads CLI.

Multi-Repo Integration Test

Test daemon RPC with multiple repositories:

# Start the daemon first
cd /path/to/beads
./beads daemon start

# Run multi-repo test
cd adapters/mcp
uv run test_multi_repo.py

This test verifies that the daemon can handle operations across multiple repositories simultaneously using per-request context routing.