Tool Servers

Tool servers connect AI agents to external capabilities — filesystems, databases, APIs, and custom tools — via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP support is universal across all six tools that dotai targets. Translation from .ai/config.yaml to each tool’s native format is mechanical and lossless.

TypeScript Interface

interface ToolServer {
  name: string;
  transport: "stdio" | "http" | "sse";
  command?: string;
  url?: string;
  args?: string[];
  env?: Record<string, string>;
  enabledTools?: string[];
  disabledTools?: string[];
  scope: Scope;
}

Configuration

Tool servers are defined in the servers section of .ai/config.yaml:

servers:
  - name: filesystem
    transport: stdio
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem"]
    scope: project

  - name: github
    transport: stdio
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: "${GITHUB_TOKEN}"
    scope: project

  - name: my-api
    transport: http
    url: "https://api.example.com/mcp"
    scope: user

Transport Types

Transport	Required fields	Description
stdio	command	Spawns a local process and communicates over stdin/stdout. Most common for npm-installed servers.
http	url	Connects to a remote HTTP endpoint serving the MCP protocol.
sse	url	Connects to a remote Server-Sent Events stream. Used for streaming-capable MCP servers.

Tool Filtering

Two mutually exclusive fields control which tools from a server are exposed to the agent:

• enabledTools — whitelist: only the listed tools are available
• disabledTools — blacklist: all tools are available except the listed ones

Setting both fields on the same server is a validation error. If neither is set, all tools from the server are available.

servers:
  - name: filesystem
    transport: stdio
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem"]
    enabledTools:
      - read_file
      - list_directory
    scope: project

Cross-Tool Support

Aspect	Claude Code	Cursor	Codex	OpenCode	Copilot	Antigravity
Config file	.mcp.json	.cursor/mcp.json	.codex/config.toml	opencode.json	.vscode/mcp.json	mcp_config.json
Format	JSON	JSON	TOML	JSON	JSON	JSON
Top-level key	mcpServers	mcpServers	[mcp_servers.<name>]	mcp	mcpServers	mcpServers
Tool filtering	enabledTools / disabledTools	enabledTools / disabledTools	enabled_tools / disabled_tools	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported

Known Limitations

• OpenCode: HTTP and SSE transports are mapped to a generic "remote" transport type. The distinction between streaming and non-streaming is not preserved in OpenCode’s config format.
• OpenCode, Copilot, Antigravity: Tool filtering (enabledTools / disabledTools) is not supported. These fields are silently dropped when emitting to those targets. All tools from the server are exposed.