MCP Workflow CLI Bridge

clibridge is a lightweight, local-first Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that acts as a dispatch hub, routing agentic coding tasks to local CLI tools (claude, codex, opencode, gemini, agy, ollama). Instead of hardcoding vendor APIs or writing execution wrappers for different IDEs and frameworks, you delegate tasks to standard local engines with full capability-based routing and output schema validation.

How It Works

  MCP Client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf…)
        │
        │  run_agent (prompt, schema, cwd, attachments)
        ▼
  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  clibridge (Local Process Broker & Dispatch Hub)        │
  │  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────  │
  │  1. Capability Matcher (matches requirements)           │
  │  2. Router Engine      (selects best provider)          │
  │  3. Adapter Broker     (spawns subprocess)              │
  │                        ├── claude / gemini              │
  │                        ├── codex  / opencode (images)   │
  │                        └── agy    / ollama   (sandbox)  │
  │  4. Output Parser      (checks JSON Schema & retries)   │
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
        │
        ▼  Normalized Response Envelope (Success / Error)
  MCP Client

Related MCP server: nexus-mcp

Core Features

• Unified MCP Interface — Exposes standard tools (run_agent, run_workflow, providers) to any MCP client.

• Dynamic Adapter Broker — Runs local binaries (claude, codex, opencode, gemini, agy, ollama) as subprocesses.

• Capability-Based Routing — Matches requirements (structured outputs, image support, sandboxing) to available local engines.

• Strict JSON Validation — Enforces user-defined JSON schemas on the final response to guarantee structured outputs.

• Declarative Workflows — Orchestrates multi-phase developer workflows from JSON files, with opt-in .toon input support for workflow and route config files.

• Live Terminal Monitor — Provides a real-time TUI dashboard (bridge-monitor) to tail executions.

Get Started (60 seconds)

# 1 — Clone & Install
git clone https://github.com/mateusoliveirab/clibridge.git
cd clibridge && npm install

# 2 — Configure MCP Client
node --import tsx src/mcp-server.ts     # Run the MCP server via stdio

# 3 — Run a Workflow (Optional CLI wrapper)
node bin/bridge-contribute.mjs --dry-run "add route selection tests"

Supported Providers & Capabilities

Below is the capabilities matrix for the supported local CLI engines:

If a call requires a capability the target provider does not support (e.g., passing a schema to agy), the broker rejects the request with a validation error before spawning any process.

Normalized Response Envelope

clibridge normalizes output from different CLI clients into a unified response shape. Success and error states follow strict JSON models.

Success Envelope

Returned when the provider executes successfully and passes schema validation.

{
  "ok": true,
  "runId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7a8b-9c0d-1e2f3a4b5c6d",
  "provider": "codex",
  "phase": "Generate",
  "label": "generate:iter1",
  "durationMs": 1420,
  "attempts": 1,
  "structured": true,
  "data": {
    "title": "TypeScript Performance",
    "body": "Optimize your code using..."
  },
  "text": "{\n  \"title\": \"TypeScript Performance\",\n  \"body\": \"Optimize your code using...\"\n}",
  "usage": { "inputTokens": 120, "outputTokens": 240 },
  "artifacts": [],
  "warnings": []
}

Error Envelope

Returned on subprocess timeouts, parse failures, schema validation errors, or execution aborts.

{
  "ok": false,
  "runId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7a8b-9c0d-1e2f3a4b5c6d",
  "provider": "gemini",
  "phase": "Generate",
  "label": "generate:iter1",
  "durationMs": 850,
  "attempts": 3,
  "errorCode": "SCHEMA_VALIDATION_FAILED",
  "message": "Output failed JSON Schema validation.",
  "recoverable": true,
  "details": {
    "errors": [
      {
        "instancePath": "/body",
        "message": "must be string"
      }
    ]
  },
  "stderrTail": "Gemini process output...",
  "stdoutTail": ""
}

Installation & Setup

Client Integration

1. Claude Desktop

Add the server configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

• MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clibridge": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["--import", "tsx", "/absolute/path/to/clibridge/src/mcp-server.ts"]
    }
  }
}

2. Claude Code

To use this inside Claude Code, define the server in your project's local .mcp.json configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clibridge": {
      "cwd": ".",
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["--import", "tsx", "/absolute/path/to/clibridge/src/mcp-server.ts"]
    }
  }
}

Then, create .claude/agents/workflow-cli-router.md to map agent work to run_agent.

3. Cursor & Windsurf

In Cursor or Windsurf, navigate to Settings -> Features -> MCP and add a new MCP Server:

• Name: clibridge

• Type: command

• Command: node --import tsx /absolute/path/to/clibridge/src/mcp-server.ts

4. Codex Plugin

You can add the bridge directly as a Codex plugin:

codex plugin marketplace add /path/to/clibridge
codex plugin add clibridge@clibridge-local

MCP Tools Spec

providers

Returns all registered provider adapters, their capabilities, and whether their CLI binaries are available on the user's PATH.

run_agent

Runs a task on the targeted provider.

Parameters:

Example Call:

{
  "workflow": "blog-pipeline",
  "phase": "Generate",
  "label": "generate:iter1",
  "cwd": "/path/to/project",
  "prompt": "Generate a blog post about TypeScript performance",
  "provider": "codex",
  "schema": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "title": { "type": "string" },
      "body": { "type": "string" }
    },
    "required": ["title", "body"]
  }
}

run_workflow

Runs a declarative workflow file through the generic MCP workflow executor. This is the preferred interface when a client wants to execute a full workflow instead of a single provider task.

Parameters:

Example Call:

{
  "workflowPath": "/home/ubuntu/repos/clibridge/examples/headroom-contribution.workflow.json",
  "cwd": "/home/ubuntu/repos/workbench-claude/headroom",
  "task": "fix the wrap prepare-only path",
  "dryRun": true,
  "inputs": {
    "changeType": "bugfix",
    "publishTarget": "pr"
  },
  "contractFormat": "toon",
  "timeoutMs": 90000,
  "dangerouslySkipPermissions": true
}

contractFormat: "toon" affects agent-to-agent prompt context such as {{inputs}}, {{results}}, and structured phase results passed to later agents. It does not change MCP structuredContent, JSON Schema validation, normalized provider envelopes, shell command rendering, or .bridge-runs/*.jsonl.

Routing Configuration

Create a route-config.json at your repository root to govern automatic tool execution routing:

{
  "defaultProvider": "opencode",
  "routes": [
    { "phase": "Extract", "provider": "codex" },
    { "phase": "Generate", "provider": "opencode" }
  ]
}

If no route configuration matches, the broker will auto-select a provider only if exactly one available CLI satisfies the requested capabilities.

routeConfigPath also accepts .toon files. TOON is decoded at the file boundary and then validated as the same internal JSON-compatible object model; MCP responses, JSON Schema payloads, and .bridge-runs/*.jsonl remain JSON.

Contribution Workflow

For repository contribution work, the bridge includes a client-neutral workflow entrypoint:

node bin/bridge-contribute.mjs --dry-run "add a focused test for route selection"

This runs the reference github-contribution CLI workflow as a code architecture developer. For MCP clients, prefer run_workflow with a JSON workflow file such as examples/headroom-contribution.workflow.json. .toon workflow files are supported as an opt-in input representation, but JSON remains the canonical documented format.

CLI Utilities

clibridge includes command-line tools to monitor executions and discover workflows dynamically:

1. Generic CLI (bridge-cli)

Inspect and execute workflows natively:

node --import tsx bin/bridge-cli.mjs list                  # List registered workflows
node --import tsx bin/bridge-cli.mjs info <workflow-name>  # Inspect phase details
node --import tsx bin/bridge-cli.mjs doc                   # View the generic executor specification
node --import tsx bin/bridge-cli.mjs run <workflow-path> --task "prompt"  # Run a workflow directly
node --import tsx bin/bridge-cli.mjs run <workflow-path> --task "prompt" --contract-format toon

2. Live Run TUI Monitor (bridge-monitor)

Tails and visualizes the state of current or past runs in your terminal:

node --import tsx bin/bridge-monitor.mjs            # Live TUI tailing active runs
node --import tsx bin/bridge-monitor.mjs --once     # Single terminal frame print
node --import tsx bin/bridge-monitor.mjs --run <id> # Focus a specific run

Security & Sandbox Guidelines

Development & Testing

Run the local test suite and static checks:

npm install
npm test                   # Run unit tests via node:test
npm run test:coverage      # Run unit tests with a code coverage report
npm run typecheck          # Strict TypeScript checks
npm run smoke              # Validate provider connectivity without spawning CLI tasks

Validate provider connectivity without spawning actual CLI tasks:

npm run smoke

Validate live provider adapters strictly (tests the actual binary directly, bypassing fallbacks):

npm run live:validate
npm run live:validate:claude

Validate the TOON workflow contract against real provider clients:

npm run live:toon-contract
npm run live:toon-contract -- --providers claude,codex,gemini --timeout-ms 120000

Contributing & Changelog

See our CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on developer setup and code validation. See CHANGELOG.md for release history.