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Request and Response Lifecycle

The two binaries implement the same lifecycle, with slightly different internal helper packages.

1. Process startup

  • cmd/kubestellar-ops/main.go calls pkg/cmd.Execute().
  • cmd/kubestellar-deploy/main.go calls pkg/deploy/cmd.Execute().
  • The root Cobra command checks --mcp-server.
  • MCP mode creates a server instance (pkg/mcp/server.NewServer or pkg/deploy/mcp.NewServer).

2. MCP handshake

Once started, the server reads JSON-RPC messages from stdin.

  • initialize returns protocol version, server name and version, and tool capability metadata.
  • tools/list returns the tool catalog and JSON schema for each tool.
  • initialized and notifications/initialized are accepted as notifications without a response.

In kubestellar-ops, the stdio loop lives in pkg/mcp/server/server.go and uses bufio.Reader.ReadBytes('\n'). In kubestellar-deploy, the loop is in pkg/deploy/mcp/server.go and uses a bufio.Scanner with a larger buffer for larger payloads.

3. Tool dispatch

When Claude Code invokes tools/call:

  1. The server unmarshals the tool name and arguments.
  2. handleToolsCall or handleToolCall switches on the tool name.
  3. The selected handler validates input and performs the operation.

Examples:

  • ops handlers commonly call getClientForCluster() or cluster.Discoverer.
  • deploy handlers commonly use multicluster.ClientManager, Executor, and Selector.
  • GitOps handlers call into pkg/gitops.

4. Kubernetes work

Handlers then execute the real operation:

  • Read-only diagnostics call Kubernetes list and get APIs.
  • Multi-cluster operations fan out across all discovered contexts.
  • Deploy workflows aggregate per-cluster results.
  • GitOps workflows load manifests, compare desired state, and optionally apply changes.

5. Response encoding

Finally the server wraps the result into an MCP tools/call response and writes one JSON line to stdout.

There is one important implementation difference:

  • kubestellar-ops handlers usually return (string, bool) where the string is preformatted human-readable output and the boolean marks error state.
  • kubestellar-deploy handlers usually return structured Go values that server.go marshals into formatted JSON text for the MCP response body.