Files
Xuan-Son Nguyen 20455a4ad3 server: support MCP stdio (#26062)
* move server_pipe to common

* init impl

* vendor: update subprocess.h

* add server_mcp_stdio

* stderr drain

* server_mcp_transport

* server_mcp_stdio is now framing-only, no json

* internal/mcp-stdio: integration + tests + fixes (#26075)

* server-mcp: harden transport and wire up the tool integration

Builds on the transport/manager architecture (server_mcp_transport + server_pipe)
with the hardening and integration the draft did not yet have.

Hardening:
* Reader and stderr pumps are polled (running-aware) instead of blocking on a read
  that only ends at EOF. subprocess_terminate() SIGKILLs only the direct child, so a
  grandchild the MCP server spawned that inherited the pipe would otherwise keep the
  write end open and hang teardown (both warmup shutdown at startup and process
  shutdown). The writer is likewise non-blocking + polled.
* Windows: resolve the command through PATHEXT so "npx" (npm ships npx.cmd, never
  npx.exe) spawns, matching POSIX's PATH search; and enumerate the parent environment
  as UTF-8 (GetEnvironmentStringsW) instead of the active code page.
* server_pipe gains an opt-in max_size (default unbounded, so the router's streaming
  use is unchanged); the MCP reply queue uses it so a server that streams unsolicited
  notifications between requests cannot grow it without bound.

Integration:
* --mcp-servers-config / --mcp-servers-json flags; enabling MCP restricts default CORS
  to localhost, same as --tools.
* MCP tools are exposed through /tools (and chat-completions) as <server>_<tool>,
  skipping names that collide with a built-in or another MCP tool.
* Manager lifecycle wired into llama_server(): warmup at start, shutdown() from the
  signal handler before the HTTP server drains, blocking teardown in clean_up().
* SIGPIPE ignored so a child dying mid-write yields EPIPE rather than killing us.

Assisted-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* server-mcp: add MCP test suite with grandchild deadlock regression test

21 tests over the /tools endpoint: tool discovery/invocation, timeouts, crash
recovery and respawn cooldown, warmup partial failure, malformed and batched
notification+response output, tool-definition shape, and prompt shutdown during a
slow call.

The last test spawns an MCP server that leaves a grandchild inheriting its
stdout/stderr and asserts the server both starts and stops promptly. Verified it
fails (5s SIGKILL fallback on a deadlocked reader-join) when the pump is made to
ignore the running flag, and passes with the polled reader.

Assisted-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* clean up

* clean up 2

* even stricter life cycle

* nits

* nits 2

---------

Co-authored-by: Xuan Son Nguyen <son@huggingface.co>

* fix some edge cases

* fix last_error data race

* fix response schema + docs

* server: fix MCP zombie leak and timeout-induced transport teardown

join_pumps() never reaped the child, leaking one zombie per spawn:
call subprocess_join() before subprocess_destroy().

A per-call timeout permanently closed from_server and got a healthy
transport evicted: add close_on_stop to server_pipe::read() and pass
false from send_rpc(), where should_stop is a per-request deadline
and a late reply is already skipped on id mismatch.

Also drop the unreachable disconnect cancellation in
server_mcp_tool::invoke(): support_stream is false, st is always null.

(cherry picked from commit e6de1ec043174fd0570b1e60d47f06c7c19d620d)

Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.8

* server: make MCP test fixtures JSON-RPC 2.0 compliant

Add the missing notification guard to mcp_malformed_server.py and
mcp_burst_server.py (the latter treated id 0 as a notification and
replied to unknown ones; its notification table is now unused).

Return -32602 instead of -32601 for unknown tools: tools/call is a
valid method, the tool name is the invalid parameter.

Also fix the test module docstring: tools are named <server>_<tool>.

(cherry picked from commit 74a08e8c311dabf3b49d06cc6d754b0097ae7a38)

Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.8

---------

Co-authored-by: Piotr Wilkin (ilintar) <piotr.wilkin@syndatis.com>
Co-authored-by: Pascal <admin@serveurperso.com>
2026-07-26 01:08:49 +02:00
..
2026-07-26 01:08:49 +02:00
2026-07-26 01:08:49 +02:00

Server tests

Python based server tests scenario using pytest.

Tests target GitHub workflows job runners with 4 vCPU.

Note: If the host architecture inference speed is faster than GitHub runners one, parallel scenario may randomly fail. To mitigate it, you can increase values in n_predict, kv_size.

Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run tests

  1. Build the server
cd ../../..
cmake -B build
cmake --build build --target llama-server
  1. Start the test: ./tests.sh

It's possible to override some scenario steps values with environment variables:

variable description
PORT context.server_port to set the listening port of the server during scenario, default: 8080
LLAMA_SERVER_BIN_PATH to change the server binary path, default: ../../../build/bin/llama-server
DEBUG to enable steps and server verbose mode --verbose
N_GPU_LAYERS number of model layers to offload to VRAM -ngl --n-gpu-layers
LLAMA_CACHE by default server tests re-download models to the tmp subfolder. Set this to your cache (e.g. $HOME/Library/Caches/llama.cpp on Mac or $HOME/.cache/llama.cpp on Unix) to avoid this

To run slow tests (will download many models, make sure to set LLAMA_CACHE if needed):

SLOW_TESTS=1 ./tests.sh

To run with stdout/stderr display in real time (verbose output, but useful for debugging):

DEBUG=1 ./tests.sh -s -v -x

To run all the tests in a file:

./tests.sh unit/test_chat_completion.py -v -x

To run a single test:

./tests.sh unit/test_chat_completion.py::test_invalid_chat_completion_req

Hint: You can compile and run test in single command, useful for local development:

cmake --build build -j --target llama-server && ./tools/server/tests/tests.sh

To see all available arguments, please refer to pytest documentation

Debugging external llama-server

It can sometimes be useful to run the server in a debugger when invesigating test failures. To do this, the environment variable DEBUG_EXTERNAL=1 can be set which will cause the test to skip starting a llama-server itself. Instead, the server can be started in a debugger.

Example using gdb:

$ gdb --args ../../../build/bin/llama-server \
    --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8080 \
    --temp 0.8 --seed 42 \
    --hf-repo ggml-org/models --hf-file tinyllamas/stories260K.gguf \
    --batch-size 32 --no-slots --alias tinyllama-2 --ctx-size 512 \
    --parallel 2 --n-predict 64

And a break point can be set in before running:

(gdb) br server.cpp:4604
(gdb) r
main: server is listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080 - starting the main loop
srv  update_slots: all slots are idle

And then the test in question can be run in another terminal:

(venv) $ env DEBUG_EXTERNAL=1 ./tests.sh unit/test_chat_completion.py -v -x

And this should trigger the breakpoint and allow inspection of the server state in the debugger terminal.