workspace-agent-relay-mcp

A local relay + dashboard that lets a ChatGPT Workspace Agent report its plan, progress, tool calls, questions, and final result back to your machine — in real time, while it works.

The left side is the relay dashboard: the user's message, the agent's plan checklist (all steps done), the tool calls it ran locally (write_file, run_command with durations), and the final result. The right side is the ChatGPT Workspace Agent itself — which the local operator otherwise cannot see. The relay mirrors the agent's work into a live, readable view.

Why this exists: the Workspace Agent trigger API is fire-and-forget. You POST a task and get a 202 Accepted with no body and no way to retrieve the agent's answer. So an agent running in ChatGPT has no built-in channel to show you what it's doing or hand you a result. This relay gives it that channel: a tiny MCP server the agent calls back into, plus a live dashboard you watch.

How it fits together

Three pieces, two of them on your machine:

   you (browser)            your machine                       ChatGPT cloud
   ┌────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐         ┌──────────────────┐
   │ dashboard  │◀── │  workspace-agent-relay    │ ◀──MCP─ │  Workspace Agent │
   │ :8799      │    │  (MCP + web + SSE)        │  calls  │  (triggered runs)│
   └────────────┘    └─────────────┬────────────┘         └──────────────────┘
                                   │ HTTP /internal/tool-trace
                                   ▲
                                   │  fire-and-forget trace per tool call
                          ┌────────┴─────────────┐
                          │ notion-local-ops-mcp │  ← the agent's "hands"
                          │ (file/git/shell tools)│     (separate repo, optional)
                          └──────────────────────┘

• workspace-agent-relay-mcp (this repo): the MCP server the agent writes into, the dashboard you read from, and the SSE bus that pushes updates live.

• notion-local-ops-mcp (separate repo, optional): the agent's working tools — files, git, shell. When paired with this relay, every tool call the agent makes there is auto-mirrored here as a trace, so you watch it work without the agent manually reporting anything.

• ChatGPT Workspace Agent: the cloud brain. Triggered by this relay, calls back into both MCPs.

Related MCP server: Skein Toolkit MCP Server

What the agent sees (MCP tools)

Six tools, all narrow on purpose — no shell, no arbitrary file access, no secrets:

What you see (dashboard)

Open http://127.0.0.1:8799/ in a browser. For each run, in reading order:

1. Your message (what you sent the agent).

2. Plan checklist — the steps the agent committed to, with live in_progress / done / skipped states.

   

3. Tool calls — a collapsible list of tool-call traces auto-mirrored from the agent's working MCP (apply_patch, git_commit, run_command, …), each with args, result summary, and duration. Failed calls are flagged red.

4. Notes — the agent's own one-line progress narrations (only when it has something worth saying).

5. Question — if the agent asked you something via ask_user.

6. Result — the final Markdown deliverable.

Everything streams in over SSE while the agent works — you don't refresh.

Quick start

1. Install

python3.11 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
cp .env.example .env

2. Configure .env

# Protects /api/* and /mcp. Generate with: openssl rand -hex 32
WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_AUTH_TOKEN=replace-me

# From your ChatGPT Workspace Agent settings:
WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_TRIGGER_URL=https://api.chatgpt.com/v1/workspace_agents/agtch_your_id/trigger
WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_AGENT_TOKEN=your-workspace-agent-access-token

Two tokens, two jobs:

3. Run

workspace-agent-relay-mcp        # serves MCP + dashboard on 127.0.0.1:8799

Or behind a tunnel:

./scripts/dev-tunnel.sh          # uses cloudflared if cloudflared.local.yml exists, else a quick tunnel

4. Configure the ChatGPT Workspace Agent

This is the part that turns the relay from a blank dashboard into a live one. Three things to set in ChatGPT: the trigger, the MCP connector, and the Instructions.

a. Create the Workspace Agent and copy its trigger credentials

1. In ChatGPT, create (or open) a Workspace Agent.

2. Copy its Trigger URL (https://api.chatgpt.com/v1/workspace_agents/agtch_…/trigger) into WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_TRIGGER_URL.

3. Copy its access token into WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_AGENT_TOKEN (server-side only — never paste this into the browser dashboard).

The relay uses these to POST new tasks to the agent when you hit Send in the dashboard.

b. Add the relay as an MCP connector

In the Workspace Agent's MCP connectors section, add:

After connecting, confirm the tool list includes record_plan, record_progress, record_result, ask_user, get_run_context, server_info. If a tool is missing, reconnect the MCP so ChatGPT re-fetches tools/list.

c. Paste the collaboration Instructions

Open docs/agent-instructions.md, copy the fenced block under "指令正文", and paste it into the Agent's Instructions field (append to, or replace, any existing relay section). This tells the agent the workflow it must follow on every run:

record_plan  →  bind_relay_run  →  batch record_progress  →  record_result

Without this, the agent will silently do work in ChatGPT that the dashboard can't see.

d. (Optional, for live tool traces) Connect notion-local-ops-mcp too

If you want the Tool calls panel to stream the agent's real file/git/shell actions, also connect notion-local-ops-mcp as a second MCP connector and paste its bind_relay_run step — see Pairing with notion-local-ops-mcp below.

5. Smoke test

1. Start the relay, open http://127.0.0.1:8799/, paste the auth token.

2. Send a short task from the dashboard (e.g. "create /tmp/hello.txt with one line, then read it back").

3. Watch the plan checklist appear, tool traces stream in, then the final result.

Pairing with notion-local-ops-mcp

This relay only exposes reporting tools (plan/progress/result) — it deliberately has no shell, file, or git access. To let the agent actually do work and have those actions show up live in the dashboard, pair it with its sibling project:

notion-local-ops-mcp — a local MCP that gives the agent file reads/writes, patch editing, git, shell, and delegated tasks. It lives in a separate repo and works standalone; the relay integration is opt-in.

What the pairing enables

On its own, this relay shows the agent's plan + progress + result. With notion-local-ops-mcp paired, it additionally shows every tool call the agent makes (write_file, apply_patch, git_commit, run_command, …) streaming in live — without the agent manually reporting any of them.

How they talk

ChatGPT Agent ──MCP──▶ notion-local-ops-mcp ──POST /internal/tool-trace──▶ this relay ──SSE──▶ dashboard

1. The agent calls record_plan on this relay (the plan shows up).

2. The agent calls bind_relay_run on notion-local-ops-mcp, passing the request_id + callback_token from the trigger. It does not pass a relay URL — that's configured on the notion-local-ops side via NOTION_LOCAL_OPS_RELAY_URL (default http://127.0.0.1:8799).

3. From then on, every @traced tool the agent runs on notion-local-ops fires a fire-and-forget trace POST to this relay.

4. This relay stores each trace as a progress event and pushes it over SSE to the dashboard.

The internal endpoint authenticates with the per-run callback_token in the body (not the dashboard bearer), and a closed/terminal run rejects traces with 409. The relay being unreachable never blocks the agent's tool execution — traces are best-effort.

Setup on the notion-local-ops side

See notion-local-ops-mcp → Relay Bridge for its env knobs (NOTION_LOCAL_OPS_RELAY_URL, NOTION_LOCAL_OPS_RELAY_BRIDGE_ENABLED, NOTION_LOCAL_OPS_RELAY_BRIDGE_TIMEOUT). Default values point at this relay's default port, so a same-machine install works with no extra config.

Project layout

src/workspace_agent_relay_mcp/
  server.py        # FastMCP server + the six agent-facing tools + global instructions
  app.py           # Starlette app: routes, middleware, SSE event bus
  api/routes/      # /api/agents, /api/conversations, /api/runs (SSE), /internal/tool-trace
  store/relay_store.py   # SQLite layer: runs, events, plans, artifacts, redaction
  trigger.py       # Builds the input_text sent to the ChatGPT trigger API
  config.py        # Env-driven config
  oauth.py         # Optional OAuth mode for ChatGPT web developer mode
frontend/          # React + Vite dashboard (TypeScript, TanStack Query, SSE)
scripts/dev-tunnel.sh   # supervisor + cloudflared rolling-reload launcher
docs/              # design specs + agent instructions
tests/             # pytest suite

Trigger semantics (the short version)

• conversation_key — the stable continuation key for a thread. Reuse it to keep one conversation.

• request_id — per-run trace key, echoed in every callback.

• idempotency_key — per-message retry key. New logical message → new key.

• conversation_url — saved as human-readable metadata only; not the continuation key.

The dashboard shows both the current conversation_key and the latest conversation_url so you don't accidentally fork a thread by reusing the wrong one.

Security notes

• .env, cloudflared.local.yml, and *.sqlite* are git-ignored — keep them out of commits.

• The per-run callback_token is stored only as a hash; it's redacted from logs and API responses.

• Use a high-entropy WORKSPACE_AGENT_RELAY_AUTH_TOKEN.

• Rotate any Workspace Agent access token that ever leaks into chat or logs.

• Debug MCP logging redacts common token/secret/authorization/key fields before writing summaries.

Status

Early, single-user, local-first. Not a product. Built to learn and prototype the Workspace Agent callback gap.