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…ut pre-checking via mcp-inspect Co-authored-by: lpcox <15877973+lpcox@users.noreply.github.com>
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Pull request overview
Updates the Smoke Copilot agentic workflow instructions to avoid false negatives when validating Serena tool availability (by calling Serena tools directly rather than relying on mcp-inspect pre-checks).
Changes:
- Rewrites the “Serena MCP Testing” instructions to require a direct
serena-activate_projectcall. - Clarifies that failures from indirect diagnostics (like
mcp-inspect) are not proof Serena is unavailable. - Keeps the follow-up Serena validation step (
serena-find_symbol) to confirm symbol discovery works.
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| 3. **Serena MCP Testing**: | ||
| - Use the `serena-activate_project` tool to initialize the workspace at `${{ github.workspace }}` and verify it succeeds (do NOT use bash to run go commands - use Serena's MCP tools or the safeinputs-go/safeinputs-make tools from the go-make shared workflow) | ||
| - After initialization, use the `serena-find_symbol` tool to search for symbols and verify that at least 3 symbols are found in the results | ||
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `path: "${{ github.workspace }}"` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect` or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error |
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serena-activate_project likely doesn’t take a path argument. In the Serena MCP server tests, project activation is called with relative_path (e.g., {"relative_path": "go_project"}), so this instruction may cause the smoke workflow to fail when the agent follows it. Update the instruction to use the correct argument name (likely relative_path, probably set to "." / repo root) or omit the argument if the tool defaults to the configured project root.
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `path: "${{ github.workspace }}"` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect` or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error | |
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `relative_path: "."` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect` or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error |
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `path: "${{ github.workspace }}"` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect` or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error | ||
| - A failure of `mcp-inspect` or any other indirect check does NOT indicate that Serena tools are unavailable; only report Serena as unavailable if the direct `serena-activate_project` call itself returns an error |
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This text forbids mcp-inspect, but the failure described in the PR comes from the prefixed tool name (agenticworkflows-mcp-inspect) used in routed mode. Consider explicitly calling out agenticworkflows-mcp-inspect here as well, otherwise the agent may still try that “diagnostic” pre-check.
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `path: "${{ github.workspace }}"` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect` or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error | |
| - A failure of `mcp-inspect` or any other indirect check does NOT indicate that Serena tools are unavailable; only report Serena as unavailable if the direct `serena-activate_project` call itself returns an error | |
| - Call the `serena-activate_project` tool DIRECTLY with `path: "${{ github.workspace }}"` — do NOT use `mcp-inspect`, `agenticworkflows-mcp-inspect`, or any other diagnostic tool to pre-check availability; just call the tool and observe whether it succeeds or returns an error | |
| - A failure of `mcp-inspect`, `agenticworkflows-mcp-inspect`, or any other indirect check does NOT indicate that Serena tools are unavailable; only report Serena as unavailable if the direct `serena-activate_project` call itself returns an error |
The Smoke Copilot workflow failed because the agent called
agenticworkflows-mcp-inspectas an uninstructed pre-check for Serena availability. That call returns-32603(Serena is already running in the MCP gateway — it can't be cold-started for inspection), and the agent incorrectly treated that failure as proof the tools were absent — never attemptingserena-activate_projectdirectly despite all 23 Serena tools being registered and available.Changes
smoke-copilot.mdstep 3: Rewrite the Serena test instructions to:serena-activate_projectdirectly with no pre-flight checksmcp-inspectfailure does not indicate tool unavailabilityWarning
Firewall rules blocked me from connecting to one or more addresses (expand for details)
I tried to connect to the following addresses, but was blocked by firewall rules:
example.com/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test /tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test -test.testlogfile=/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/testlog.txt -test.paniconexit0 -test.timeout=10m0s -test.v=true 64/src/runtime/cgo(dns block)invalid-host-that-does-not-exist-12345.com/tmp/go-build2906290365/b264/config.test /tmp/go-build2906290365/b264/config.test -test.testlogfile=/tmp/go-build2906290365/b264/testlog.txt -test.paniconexit0 -test.timeout=10m0s -test.v=true 64/src/runtime/cgo 8m9dy2lhN .12/x64/as(dns block)nonexistent.local/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test /tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test -test.testlogfile=/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/testlog.txt -test.paniconexit0 -test.timeout=10m0s -test.v=true 64/src/runtime/cgo(dns block)slow.example.com/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test /tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/launcher.test -test.testlogfile=/tmp/go-build2906290365/b279/testlog.txt -test.paniconexit0 -test.timeout=10m0s -test.v=true 64/src/runtime/cgo(dns block)this-host-does-not-exist-12345.com/tmp/go-build2906290365/b288/mcp.test /tmp/go-build2906290365/b288/mcp.test -test.testlogfile=/tmp/go-build2906290365/b288/testlog.txt -test.paniconexit0 -test.timeout=10m0s -test.v=true 64/src/runtime/cgo 64/src/maps/iter.go x_amd64/compile(dns block)If you need me to access, download, or install something from one of these locations, you can either:
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