MCP server inside Ekos

[Jasem Mutlaq]

Hello Thomas,

Thank you for your proposal. There is a whole project for this year GSoC
2026 dedicated to AI-assisted guiding: https://www.pavansg.me/blog/gsoc

Nevertheless, the idea of MCP server integration is intriguing and we can
see if it benefits the overall ecosystem. Do you have the code available
somewhere so we can review it? Was this only used for guiding or for other
purposes?

--
Best Regards,
Jasem Mutlaq



On Sat, May 30, 2026 at 5:29 PM Thomas Nemer <thomas.nemer at fortytwo.fr>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've been on this list quietly for several years but never posted before.
>
> Quick intro: backyard astrophotographer in France. For a long time I
> picked targets that worked with "polar align well and track". Recently I
> tried guiding for the first time and hit a tuning wall.
>
> The Cloudy Nights folks pointed me in the right direction, and once I had
> the basics I wanted to keep tuning, but the loop of reading logs, change a
> setting and try again was painful. I fired up an AI agent on the log files
> and it helped, but reading after-the-fact text still was a very long
> feedback loop.
>
> So I started building an MCP server inside Ekos, first exposing the live
> state I needed for guiding diagnosis, then expanding as it became useful,
> and even some more after only because some tools looked like quick wins.
>
> How it is today:
>
>    - ~40 tools across mount / capture / guide / focus / align / scheduler
>    / INDI, plus an SSE channel for typed events.
>    - Streamable-HTTP MCP transport on localhost, bearer-token auth, rate
>    limiting, optional read-only mode with a separate read-only token.
>    - Per-tool 'readOnly' / 'destructive' / 'idempotent' annotations so
>    MCP clients can show users what they're authorizing.
>    - Settings UI integrated into the existing Ekos options panel.
>    - 25 headless QTest cases, all green on Qt6.
>
> To be honest my C++ experience is very old, never with Qt, and there are
> places I trusted the generative AI's proposed implementations blindly.
> Also, my rig is very modest (EQ6 Pro + 200/800 Newton + ASI 294MC Pro + ASI
> 120MM mini), so there are some tools I just can't test end to end.
>
> Would that contribution be welcomed? I would be happy to share any more
> details
>
>
> Best regards,
> Thomas Nemer
>
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