# mcp-config — shared client config for laptops

Single source of truth for what the agents see: the **covert-gpt model provider**
(LiteLLM at `llm.covert-gpt.com`) and the **MCP servers**, which run
**client-side**. Users install once; their config then refreshes automatically
on each new shell.

Two clients consume it: **opencode** (deployed to
`~/.config/opencode/opencode.gateway.json`) and **Hermes** (its `mcp_servers:`
block in `~/.hermes/config.yaml` is rendered from the same definitions — see
"One definition, two clients" below).

## MCP runs on the CLIENT, never on the gateway

The LiteLLM gateway hosts **no MCP servers** — deliberately. Every API worth
exposing (Gitea, Proxmox, UniFi, NetBird, k8s) is **user-scoped**, so hosting it
centrally means one shared token per server: every user acts as the same
identity and attribution is gone.

LiteLLM *can* do per-request BYOK (env values written `${X-Header}` are filled
from the caller's headers — verified working for proxmox on v1.87.0), but only
for servers that tolerate a credential-less spawn. LiteLLM builds its
tool→server mapping from a **headerless** background listing, and `gitea-mcp`
hard-exits without a token, so it never registers and its tool calls 404. The
gateway could therefore host only *some* servers — and a split brain (some MCPs
server-side, some client-side) is worse than either. So **all** MCP servers are
defined here, each reading the user's **own** credentials from their own
environment. The config is identical for everyone; only the secrets differ.

## One definition, two clients

The servers are defined **once**, in `opencode.gateway.json`'s `mcp` block.
Hermes speaks a different schema, so `sync.sh` *renders* that one definition into
`mcp_servers:` in `~/.hermes/config.yaml` rather than keeping a second copy — two
copies would drift, one pinned to `gitea-mcp@0.0.10` and the other to whatever
got typed. Add a server here once and **both** clients get it, within the same
TTL. The translation is mechanical:

| opencode | Hermes |
|---|---|
| `command: ["npx","-y","pkg@1.2.3"]` (argv list) | `command: npx` + `args: ["-y","pkg@1.2.3"]` — Hermes' `command` must be a **string**; a list stringifies and fails at exec |
| `environment: {K: "{env:VAR}"}` | `env: {K: "${VAR}"}` |
| `type: remote`, `url`, `headers` | `url`, `headers` |
| `enabled: false` | entry omitted |

Both placeholder forms are by-NAME references resolved at runtime, so no secret
is written to either file. Hermes hands an MCP child only a filtered baseline
environment, so every secret a server needs **must** be listed in `env:` — which
is exactly what the rendered block does.

Servers you add to Hermes by hand are left alone: `sync.sh` records the names it
rendered in `~/.config/mcp-sync/hermes-managed.json`, so a server dropped from
this repo is dropped from Hermes too, while anything not in that manifest is
never touched. Rendering is skipped silently when Hermes isn't installed, and
needs PyYAML (it warns if that's missing). Nothing needs adding to Hermes'
`platform_toolsets` — MCP servers are auto-enabled by name; listing *some*
would turn it into an allowlist, and `no_mcp` disables them all.

Credentials are referenced as `{env:VAR}` and are **never** written into the
config. Each user exports them in `~/.zshrc.local`:

| MCP server | env vars |
|---|---|
| `gitea`   | `GITEA_KEY` |
| `proxmox` | `PROXMOX_TOKEN_ID`, `PROXMOX_TOKEN_SECRET` |

**Requires `npx`** — the MCP servers are npm packages that opencode spawns as
`npx -y <pkg>@<version>`. `bootstrap.sh` installs Node for this (`node/`).
Without it every server dies with "command not found", which opencode surfaces
only as a dead server — easy to misread as a broken config.

This repo lives in Gitea at `public/dotfiles`. (It is mirrored from the
`ai-k8s-iac` repo under `mcp-config/`; edit it there or here and keep them in
sync — the laptops pull from Gitea's `main`.)

## How it works

- `opencode.gateway.json` — the shared base config:
  - the `covert-gpt` model provider (LiteLLM's OpenAI-compatible endpoint at
    `https://llm.covert-gpt.com/v1`, models map left empty — it is filled by
    discovery at sync time), and
  - the **MCP servers**, each `type: local`, spawned by opencode as
    `npx -y <pkg>@<pinned-version>` on the user's own machine.

  **Identical for every user**: every credential (the LiteLLM key, the Gitea
  PAT, the Proxmox token) is injected via `{env:VAR}` and never written into
  the file. Versions are pinned — `npx` runs whatever the registry serves, and
  that process gets your tokens.
- `sync.sh` — sourced from each user's shell rc. On a new shell (throttled
  ~1h) it reads the base config **from the local checkout** (see "Where the
  config comes from" below), queries the gateway's
  `/v1/models` with the user's key to **auto-discover models** (opencode
  can't list models from a custom provider itself, so the map is
  materialized client-side; if discovery fails the previous map is carried
  over), deploys the repo's **skills** (see below), deploys the config to
  `~/.config/opencode/opencode.gateway.json`, and exports `LITELLM_KEY`
  (from `~/.config/mcp-sync/key`) plus `OPENCODE_CONFIG` (pointing at the
  deployed file — opencode does NOT auto-load extra files in its config dir,
  so without this export the file is ignored). Silent + non-fatal: a Gitea
  hiccup never breaks the shell, last-good config stays in place.
- `../skills/` — the shared skill folders, deployed to
  `~/.config/mcp-sync/skills` and wired in through `skills.paths` in the
  config above. Skills are plain files, so — unlike models and MCP servers —
  there is nothing on the gateway to discover and **the repo is the source of
  truth**; the tree is copied from the checkout (or, with no checkout, fetched
  whole from the repo tarball). They deploy to
  mcp-sync's own directory rather than `~/.config/opencode/skills` so the
  atomic replace can never delete a skill the user wrote by hand. See
  `skills/README.md`.
- `install.sh` — one-time bootstrap. Installs `sync.sh` (from the checkout it
  was run out of, else the Gitea API), records that checkout in
  `~/.config/mcp-sync/source`, stores the user's key (0600), and adds the rc
  hook.

opencode merges the `OPENCODE_CONFIG` file on top of the user's global
`~/.config/opencode/opencode.json` (and under any project `opencode.json`),
so the synced config coexists with each user's own settings and any
**local-only** MCP servers (e.g. a client-side `kubernetes` pointed at their
own kubeconfig). Sync never touches those.

## Where the config comes from

**The local checkout is the source.** `bootstrap.sh` already clones this repo
over authenticated git, so the per-shell hook reads `opencode.gateway.json` and
`skills/` straight off disk. No HTTP, no anonymous read, works offline.

This is deliberate. The hook used to re-download both from Gitea's public
`/raw/` URL on every sync, which meant **the repo had to be world-readable for
a shell hook to work** — publishing every internal hostname and the whole MCP
server inventory as the price of a config refresh. Worse, Gitea answers an
unauthorized `/raw/` request with a **200 and an HTML login page**, so `curl -f`
reported success and wrote HTML over the config; the failure was silent and the
config simply froze at its last good copy.

Resolution order, for both the config and the skills:

1. `MCP_SYNC_REPO` / `MCP_SYNC_RAW_URL` / `MCP_SYNC_SKILLS_SRC` if set — the
   dev-checkout workflow in `zsh/zshrc.local.example`.
2. The checkout recorded in `~/.config/mcp-sync/source` by `install.sh`,
   falling back to `$DOTFILES_DIR` (`~/.dotfiles`).
3. The **Gitea API** with `$GITEA_KEY` — for a box with no checkout at all.
   API endpoints, not the web `/raw/` route, because the API returns an honest
   401/403 that `curl -f` can actually detect.

To pick up a pushed change, the hook runs `git pull --ff-only` on the checkout
— but **only** the bootstrap-managed one at `$DOTFILES_DIR`, and only when its
tree is clean and on the default branch. A checkout you work in is read, never
pulled out from under you.

Model discovery is unaffected: it still queries the gateway's `/v1/models`
live on every sync, so a new model appears without touching the repo.

## User setup (one time)

Each user needs a LiteLLM **virtual key** (for models) plus their **own**
credentials for each MCP server. Run `bootstrap.sh` (it installs Node, which
provides the `npx` the MCP servers need), then:

```sh
# From a checkout (what bootstrap.sh does — no network needed for the config):
./mcp-config/install.sh

# Or standalone on a box with no checkout:
curl -fsSL https://git.nic-oconnor.com/public/dotfiles/raw/branch/main/mcp-config/install.sh | sh
# (prompts for the sk-... key; or pass it: ... | LITELLM_KEY=sk-... sh)
# If this repo is private, export GITEA_KEY first so the fallback can read it.
```

Then export your own MCP credentials in `~/.zshrc.local`:

```sh
export GITEA_KEY=...                  # your Gitea PAT (repo + issue scopes)
export PROXMOX_TOKEN_ID=...           # e.g. alice@pve!mcp
export PROXMOX_TOKEN_SECRET=...       # the token UUID
```

Open a new terminal, run `opencode`, and the tools are there — acting as **you**.

## Adding an MCP server (admin)

Add it to `mcp.<name>` in `opencode.gateway.json` as `type: local`, with a
**pinned** package version and `{env:VAR}` refs for every secret, then push to
`main`. Users pick it up within the sync TTL (or immediately on a new shell).

Two hard requirements:
- It must be an **npm package** (opencode spawns it with `npx`).
- Its credentials must be **per-user**, via `{env:VAR}`. Never commit a token,
  and never introduce a shared one — that is the whole reason MCP is not on the
  gateway.

Models are different: they live on the gateway
(`charts/inference/values.yaml` → `model_list`) and are auto-discovered by the
`/v1/models` query in `sync.sh`. No client change needed.

## Adding a skill (admin)

Add a folder under `skills/` and push to `main` — see `skills/README.md`.
Verify with `opencode debug skill`.

## "I added a model on the gateway and opencode doesn't see it"

Almost always a stale local config, not a gateway or key problem. The sync runs
**only at shell start** and is throttled to `MCP_SYNC_TTL` (1h), so a new model
can take up to an hour *and* a new terminal to appear.

Pull it immediately:

```sh
mcp-sync          # force a refresh now, ignoring the TTL; prints the model list
```

If the model still isn't listed, it isn't reaching your key — check the gateway,
not the client:

```sh
curl -fsS -H "Authorization: Bearer $LITELLM_KEY" \
  https://llm.covert-gpt.com/v1/models | jq -r '.data[].id'
```

Whatever that prints is exactly what `sync.sh` will deploy. A model present here
but missing in opencode is a sync problem; a model missing here is a LiteLLM
`model_list` or key-scoping problem.

## Notes / caveats

- **Local-server precedence**: opencode merges with later-config-wins on key
  conflicts. If a user names a local server the same as a gateway one, theirs
  wins. Use distinct names.
- **Key rotation**: re-run `install.sh` (or edit `~/.config/mcp-sync/key`).
- **Other clients**: Hermes is wired (see "One definition, two clients").
  Claude Code / open-webui would each still need a parallel render step in
  `sync.sh`; not done yet.
- **Throttle**: `mcp-sync` forces one refresh; `MCP_SYNC_TTL=0` in the
  environment makes every new shell pull.
- **python3 is required** for model discovery. Without it `sync.sh` deploys the
  base config verbatim, so the provider comes up with an EMPTY model list. It
  warns when this happens; `bootstrap.sh` installs python3.