mcp

MCP servers registered with Shelley aren't model tools: use them by running shelley mcp from bash (shelley mcp -h for all commands).

shelley mcp list                    # servers
shelley mcp list SERVER             # its instructions and tools as TypeScript-style signatures
shelley mcp list SERVER.TOOL -schema  # one tool with its JSON schemas
shelley mcp search issue label     # tools matching every term, across all servers
shelley mcp search SERVER issue     # ...limited to one server
shelley mcp call linear.search_issues query='login bug' limit=5 'states=["open"]'

To find a tool, prefer shelley mcp search TERM... over grepping list: it matches the terms against each tool's name, description and parameters and prints the full documentation of every matching tool, grouped by server.

Read a server's instructions and signatures before first calling its tools. KEY=VALUE values are taken as is for string parameters and as JSON otherwise, so quote JSON for the shell. Images, audio and binary resources are saved to temporary files (the output says where; look at images with read_image). If the tool reports an error, it is printed to stderr and the exit status is 1. A call that timed out may still have run.

Compose calls like any shell command; keep output small with jq:

shelley mcp call SERVER.TOOL -json | jq '.structuredContent.items[] | {id, title}'
jq -n --arg q "$query" '{query: $q, limit: 5}' | shelley mcp call SERVER.search -   # arguments as JSON on stdin
for id in 1 2 3; do shelley mcp call SERVER.get_item id="$id"; done
shelley mcp call A.list_rows -json > /tmp/rows.json
jq -c '.structuredContent.rows[] | {title: .name}' /tmp/rows.json |
  while read -r args; do echo "$args" | shelley mcp call B.create_item -; done

Log in

When a command says a server needs you to log in, give the user the link exactly as printed, wait for them to say they've logged in, and retry. Never open or fetch the link yourself: it's for the user's browser, and only they can log in. shelley mcp auth SERVER shows the login state and link. Never ask for or invent tokens for servers that log in this way.

Register

shelley mcp add NAME -d 'what it is for' https://example.com/mcp   # logs in with OAuth if needed
shelley mcp add NAME -H 'Authorization: Bearer TOKEN' https://example.com/mcp
shelley mcp rm NAME

For servers that take an API key, ask the user for it. Shelley only connects to Streamable HTTP servers, not to stdio ones (local commands such as npx ...).

Editing a server's URL to tweak its path or query (a common way to pick which tools it exposes) keeps an existing OAuth login; only changing the scheme or host, or giving it an Authorization header, drops it.

Sessions

Each conversation has its own session with each server, so server state (open pages, selections) lasts across calls; forks and subagents start fresh. shelley mcp restart SERVER starts this conversation's session over, losing its state.