TidebreakDocs

MCP servers

Connect external Model Context Protocol tool servers over stdio or HTTP.

Tidebreak is an MCP client. Tools from a connected server are advertised to the agent alongside its own, namespaced as mcp__<server>__<tool>.

Adding a server

Settings → Connected apps, in the MCP servers section. Servers are added and reconnected in place — no shell, no config file, no restart.

Two transports:

Local process (stdio) — Tidebreak launches the server as a child process.

Field
ExecutableThe program to run.
ArgumentsOne per row.
Working directoryWhere to run it.
EnvironmentName/value pairs passed to the process.
Forward environment namesVariables to pass through from your own environment by name, without copying their values into the config.

Remote endpoint (HTTP) — Tidebreak connects to a URL.

Field
Server URLThe endpoint.
Bearer token variableThe name of an environment variable holding the token.
Request timeout (ms)

Every server has a Namespace, which is the <server> part of the tool names, and an Enabled switch.

Save and verify connects and lists the server's tools, so a bad command or URL fails at configuration time rather than mid-turn. Reconnect and refresh tools picks up changes to a server you are developing.

A health chip shows Healthy, Connecting…, Reconnecting, Needs attention, Disabled, or Not verified.

The approval boundary

Every MCP tool is sensitive. There is no way to mark one safe, and no inspection of what a server's tool claims to do. In Ask and Auto, each call asks.

That is deliberate. Tidebreak classifies its own tools because it knows what they do. It knows nothing about a third-party server's tools beyond the names and descriptions the server supplies — and the server wrote those.

Descriptions and results from an MCP server are untrusted input. A server can put instructions in a tool description or a tool result, and those instructions reach the model. Connect servers you trust, and read approval cards for MCP calls rather than clicking through them.

Running Tidebreak as an MCP server

The reverse direction also exists: tidebreak mcp <workspace> serves Tidebreak's read-only file tools to another MCP client over stdio. See Running headless.