Xojo IDE Control

xojo-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI assistants direct control over the Xojo IDE. Communicates via stdin/stdout JSON-RPC and forwards IDE commands via a Unix domain socket to the running Xojo IDE process.

Note on the name. This crate was previously published as xmcp. It was renamed to xojo-mcp to avoid confusion with X's (formerly Twitter) unrelated xmcp framework. The installed binary is still xmcp, so existing configs keep working.

macOS only. xojo-mcp talks to the Xojo IDE over a Unix domain socket (/tmp/XojoIDE, or /tmp/$XOJO_IPCPATH — see Choosing which IDE to talk to). Windows is not supported and there is no plan to add it. The reason is not that the IDE lacks an IPC mechanism there: Xojo's IPCSocket is a framework abstraction, and on Windows it is a localhost TCP socket whose port is derived from the path string rather than a filesystem entry. The original XMCP, being itself a Xojo application, gets that transport for free from the framework; this port speaks the wire protocol directly, so Windows would mean reverse-engineering an undocumented path-to-port derivation. Linux is untested rather than ruled out — it uses a Unix socket as macOS does, but the debug- and system-log tools read macOS-only sources.

Attribution

This is a Rust port of XMCP by Øjvind Søgaard Andersen, originally written in Xojo. The original project is licensed under the MIT License.

Quick start

1. Install

Option A: prebuilt binary (Apple Silicon)

Each release carries an aarch64-apple-darwin tarball that is signed with a Developer ID certificate, notarized by Apple, and accompanied by a detached minisign signature. Grab the latest from Releases, check it, and put the binary on your PATH:

minisign -Vm xmcp-*-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz \
    -P RWR7Jy43Mphvu+jrP2FynfYpR7WdP0PvQaSFKfXub7q9Sh7fjtyAX9GU
tar xzf xmcp-*-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
install -m 755 xmcp-*/xmcp ~/.cargo/bin/xmcp

The .minisig is the check worth doing, and the one the .sha256 beside it cannot do: a checksum file hosted next to the file it vouches for proves only that the download wasn't corrupted, since anyone able to replace one asset can replace both. The signature is made by a key that never touches the release server — the one in the command above, kept in this repository as minisign.pub.

minisign is in MacPorts (port install minisign). A successful verify prints the trusted comment, which names the version and the date it was signed. The .sha256 is still published for anyone who wants it:

shasum -a 256 -c xmcp-*-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz.sha256

The binary is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper lets it run as-is. Check that for yourself if you like:

codesign -dvv ~/.cargo/bin/xmcp   # Authority: Developer ID Application …
codesign -vvv -R="notarized" --check-notarization ~/.cargo/bin/xmcp

(spctl is the obvious thing to reach for and the wrong tool here: it answers does not seem to be an app for any plain command-line binary, notarized or not.)

A notarization ticket cannot be stapled to a bare executable — stapler only handles .app, .dmg and .pkg — so the first run needs to reach Apple to resolve the ticket. If that first run has to happen offline, clear the quarantine flag by hand instead:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/.cargo/bin/xmcp

Intel Macs are not covered — build from source instead.

Option B: from crates.io

cargo install xojo-mcp

The crate is xojo-mcp; the binary it installs is xmcp.

Option C: from source

git clone https://codeberg.org/brechanbech/xojo-mcp.git
cd xojo-mcp
cargo install --path .

This installs the xmcp binary to ~/.cargo/bin/xmcp. If ~/.cargo/bin is already on your PATH (the Rust installer adds it by default), you're done. Verify with:

xmcp --help

Optional: usage-guide.md is embedded into the binary at compile time, so the MCP resource is always available out of the box. If you want to tweak the guide without rebuilding, drop a copy next to the binary — xmcp will prefer the file on disk over the embedded fallback:

cp usage-guide.md ~/.cargo/bin/

2. Add to Claude Code

Run this from any terminal:

claude mcp add xmcp -- xmcp

Or add it manually to your Claude Code settings. Open the MCP config file (on macOS: ~/.claude/settings.json or the project-level .claude/settings.json) and add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp": {
      "command": "xmcp",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

To enable verbose logging (written to stderr, visible in the Claude Code MCP log):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp": {
      "command": "xmcp",
      "args": ["-v"]
    }
  }
}

3. Use it

1. Start the Xojo IDE and open your project
2. Start a Claude Code session in the project directory
3. Claude will automatically discover the 29 xmcp tools and the usage guide

4. Download Xojo documentation (recommended)

The documentation tools (search_docs, lookup_class, list_doc_topics) need a local copy of the Xojo docs. A script is included to download them from docs.xojo.com:

scripts/update-xojo-docs.sh

This downloads llms.txt and llms-full.txt from docs.xojo.com and splits the full documentation into individual class files under _sources/. Everything goes into ~/Library/Application Support/Xojo/Xojo/<version>/Documentation/, which xmcp auto-detects at startup. Re-run the script periodically to pick up documentation updates — Xojo refreshes these files when new releases are published.

lookup_class returns a shaped summary by default: the class description plus its member tables, with Sphinx cross-reference markup resolved to plain text. That is a few thousand characters where the raw page runs to tens of thousands — String alone is over 70,000. Ask for one member with member, or the unprocessed page with full: true:

lookup_class(class_name: "String")                     # description + member tables
lookup_class(class_name: "String", member: "Middle")   # that member's entry alone
lookup_class(class_name: "String", full: true)         # the raw .rst.txt page

To use a custom location instead:

scripts/update-xojo-docs.sh /path/to/docs
xmcp --docs-path /path/to/docs

Read-only mode

By default, an assistant connected to xmcp can change your project: it can rewrite code, create new items, save, and revert. That is the point of the tool — but it is not always what you want. If you only want an assistant to look at a project — read the code, build it, run it, analyse it, answer questions, consult the documentation — without any possibility of it modifying or overwriting your source, start the server in read-only mode.

Read-only mode is enforced by the server itself, not by asking the assistant to behave. It is the single most important safety control in xmcp, so it is worth understanding exactly how it works.

Enabling it

The simplest way is the --read-only flag on the launch command. In Claude Code:

claude mcp add xmcp -- xmcp --read-only

Or, in a Claude Code settings file (~/.claude/settings.json, or the project-level .claude/settings.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp": {
      "command": "xmcp",
      "args": ["--read-only"]
    }
  }
}

If your MCP client prefers environment variables to command-line arguments, the variable XMCP_READ_ONLY=1 does exactly the same thing. Accepted truthy values are 1, true, yes, and on (case-insensitive):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp": {
      "command": "xmcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": { "XMCP_READ_ONLY": "1" }
    }
  }
}

If both the flag and the environment variable are present, either one enabling read-only mode is enough — there is no way to disable it from the other.

It is set at launch, not in the conversation

This is the part newcomers most often get wrong. You do not put the assistant into read-only mode by telling it to "stick to reading" in the chat. A prompt is a request the model can forget, misinterpret, or be argued out of — and it does nothing at all if the model simply calls a write tool anyway. That is the weakness read-only mode exists to remove.

Read-only mode is a property of how the server was started. You set it once, in your MCP client's configuration, before the session begins. From that point on, for the entire lifetime of that server process, the restriction holds regardless of anything typed into the conversation. Neither you nor the assistant can toggle it mid-session; to change modes you change the configuration and reconnect the server. (Restarting the server is required for a change to take effect — a server that is already running will not pick up a new flag or environment variable.)

What it actually blocks

Read-only mode disables the ten tools that modify the project:

property_value, constant_value and get_item_description also read, but each is one tool, so read-only mode blocks the read along with the write.

Tool annotations

Every tool also carries MCP behaviour hints in tools/list — a title and readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint and openWorldHint — so a client can decide what to confirm before calling it. These are hints, not enforcement, and they describe a tool's effect on the whole machine rather than on the project, so they are stricter than read-only mode: build_project, run_project and agentic_run leave the source alone and stay available in read-only mode, but they write build output or launch an app, so they are not hinted read-only. openWorldHint is false everywhere except run_ide_script, whose DoShellCommand can reach anything.

Everything else remains fully available — navigating and listing items, reading code (get_code), building (build_project), running (run_project), stopping, compile-checking (analyze_project), inspecting descriptions and constants, the debug log tools, and all three documentation tools. In short: browse, build, run, and analyse — just no writing.

Note that build and run are deliberately not blocked. They do not alter your source; they exercise it. build_project writes a compiled app into the build folder and run_project launches a debug session, but neither touches the project itself, so both are considered read-only-safe.

How the enforcement works

The restriction is applied in two independent layers, so it holds even if a client or model misbehaves:

1. The blocked tools are removed from the tool list. When the assistant asks the server what tools exist (tools/list), the six mutating tools are filtered out. The model never sees them, so it cannot choose to call something it does not know exists. This is what makes the mode effective in practice rather than merely defensive.
2. Any call to a blocked tool is rejected. If a request to one of the six arrives anyway — a stale tool list, a hand-crafted call, a buggy client — the server refuses it before the request ever reaches the IDE, returning a clear error explaining that the tool is disabled in read-only mode.

The assistant is also told, via the embedded usage guide, that when it sees a reduced tool set the project is intentionally read-only and it should work within the available tools rather than trying to route around the restriction.

Running both modes at once

Because the mode is fixed per server, you can register xmcp twice under different names and choose per task which one to point the assistant at — for example a normal xmcp for editing sessions and a separate xmcp-ro for review-only sessions:

claude mcp add xmcp    -- xmcp
claude mcp add xmcp-ro -- xmcp --read-only

Choosing which IDE to talk to

The IDE listens on a socket whose path is a temporary directory plus the name XojoIDE — or the value of XOJO_IPCPATH, when that variable is set in the IDE's environment. Setting it to a unique name per instance is Xojo's supported way of running several IDEs (say, two releases side by side) and addressing each one independently:

env XOJO_IPCPATH=Xojo2026r2_1 "/Applications/Xojo 2026 Release 2.1/Xojo.app/Contents/MacOS/Xojo" &

xmcp must be given the same value, otherwise it connects to whichever instance owns the default XojoIDE socket:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp-2026r2-1": {
      "command": "xmcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": { "XOJO_IPCPATH": "Xojo2026r2_1" }
    }
  }
}

Only a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and _ are valid in the name; xmcp ignores a value containing anything else (with a warning on stderr) and falls back to XojoIDE. Candidate directories are /tmp first — what the IDE itself prefers — then $TMPDIR, which is where the IDE falls back when /tmp is not writable.

If you only ever run one IDE at a time, ignore all of this: the default works.

Requirements

• macOS (the Xojo IDE IPC socket is macOS-specific)
• Rust toolchain (rustup — https://rustup.rs)
• Xojo IDE must be running with a project open before using any tools

Options

xmcp [OPTIONS]

• --read-only — Read-only mode: hide and reject every tool that modifies the project. Can also be enabled with XMCP_READ_ONLY=1. See Read-only mode for the full description.
• -v, --verbose — Enable verbose logging to stderr
• -d, --docs-path <PATH> — Path to Xojo documentation directory (auto-detected if omitted)
• -V, --version — Print version
• -h, --help — Print help

Environment: XMCP_READ_ONLY (see above) and XOJO_IPCPATH, which selects the IDE instance to connect to — see Choosing which IDE to talk to.

Differences from the original

This is a drop-in replacement — it exposes all 25 tools from the original with identical names and parameters (analyze_project and debug_control were the last two ported, bringing it to full parity), plus one new tool, edit_code, for 26 in total. Same IDE Communicator Protocol v2 over the Unix domain socket, updated to MCP protocol version 2025-11-25.

Notable differences:

• Binary name is xmcp
• edit_code — targeted str_replace-style editing — replaces an exact substring within an item's code in one call (read → replace → write, all server-side), instead of resending the whole item via set_code. The original has no such tool, forcing whole-item rewrites or shell-based text munging for small edits.
• Writes code directly — no shell/base64 marshalling — set_code and edit_code send source straight through the IPC, with all IDE-script string escaping (quotes, newlines, special characters) handled server-side. There is no need to smuggle code across the bridge by hand — the base64 encode-on-agent / decode-on-Mac / run-via-shell workflow the original forces for file edits simply does not exist here.
• Enforced read-only mode — --read-only / XMCP_READ_ONLY removes and rejects the mutating tools at the server. The original has no built-in enforcement; it can only be asked, via the prompt, not to write. See Read-only mode.
• No Xojo license required — builds with the standard Rust toolchain
• usage-guide.md has a compiled-in fallback — the original fails silently if the file is missing next to the binary; the Rust version embeds a copy at compile time so the MCP resource is always available. A file on disk still takes priority, so you can edit it without rebuilding.
• CLI parsing uses clap rather than the original's custom OptionParser. The flags are the same.

Tools

xmcp exposes 29 tools across five categories:

IDE tools (22): list_project_items, get_current_location, select_project_item, get_code, set_code, edit_code, get_selected_text, set_selected_text, build_project, run_project, stop_project, create_project_item, run_ide_script, get_project_info, revert_project, save_project, get_item_description, constant_value, property_value, set_declaration, analyze_project, debug_control

Documentation tools (3): search_docs, lookup_class, list_doc_topics

Debug tools (2): get_debug_log, get_system_log

Agentic Mode (1): agentic_run — runs a project that has Xojo 2026r3's Agentic Mode on and returns its compile errors with locations. It works through files in the project folder, not the IDE socket, so it can be pointed at a project with project_dir even when the socket is unavailable.

Cost awareness (1): estimate_request_cost

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md for details.

MCP registry

Ownership-verification token for the MCP registry (read from this crate's rendered README on crates.io):

Registry ownership token: mcp-name: io.github.brechanbech/xojo-mcp

Releasing

A version is immutable once published — crates.io yanks, it does not delete, and a number is never reused — so the order matters:

1. cargo test and cargo clippy --all-targets clean.

2. Bump version in Cargo.toml.

3. Bump version in server.json — both fields, the top-level one and the one under packages[]. Nothing enforces this: no script, no CI, no test reads the file. It sat at 3.4.0 through the 3.4.1 and 3.5.0 releases because of it, leaving the registry advertising a version two behind what anyone could install.

4. Commit and push; let CI go green before publishing rather than after.

5. cargo publish --dry-run, which compiles from the packaged copy and so catches a crate depending on a file it does not ship. Then cargo publish.

6. Publish to the MCP registry, after crates.io and not before — the registry verifies the namespace by reading mcp-name from this crate's rendered README on crates.io, and server.json names a cargo version that must already exist there:

   mcp-publisher validate      # checks server.json against the live registry
   mcp-publisher login github  # interactive, for the io.github.brechanbech/* namespace
   mcp-publisher publish