How to check that MCP servers are correctly loaded ?

[Apokalypt]

Question

I'm trying to determine whether the MCP servers are being loaded correctly in the SDK. Could you please clarify the recommended steps, commands, or APIs to check the status of MCP servers? Specifically, I am interested in:

• How to list all loaded MCP server tools?
• How to detect if there are errors during the loading process?
• Are there logs/events that can be retrieved to confirm MCP server loading status?

Environment

• platform: macos
• node.js: 22.19.0
• @github/copilot-sdk: 0.1.30

[john-mckillip]

Hi @Apokalypt Here’s how you can approach these tasks for the Node.js SDK in the github/copilot-sdk repo:

1. How do I list all loaded MCP server tools?

In the Node.js SDK (nodejs/src/client.ts), the Copilot SDK communicates with the MCP (Multi-tool Copilot Platform) server using JSON-RPC messages. Tools are advertised/discovered through session events and API calls.

Typical ways to list loaded tools:

Via Session Events:
When a session starts, the server sends a session.tools_available event listing all registered/loaded tools.
Inspect the session events you receive—look for "type": "session.tools_available" (or similar). This event will contain the list of tools and their metadata.

Programmatically:
In code, after connecting your Client, listen for tool events:

ts

client.on('session.tools_available', event => {
  console.log('Loaded tools:', event.tools); // array of tool objects
});

Alternatively, check the tools property on the session or client object (if exposed).

Testing/E2E:
The E2E harness and YAML snapshots also record tool lists under session.tools_available events for each session.

2. How do I detect if there are errors during the loading process?

Error Events:
The MCP server emits error events when loading tools fails (e.g., missing dependencies, invalid code).
Look for events like session.tools_load_error, error, or similar in the event stream.

ts

client.on('session.tools_load_error', err => {
  console.error('Tool load error:', err);
});
client.on('error', err => {
  // This captures lower-level connection or protocol errors
  console.error('Client error:', err);
});

Session Start:
You may also receive a failed session.start event, or a session.state with error details if tool loading fails at startup.

3. Are there logs/events that can be retrieved to confirm MCP server loading status?
   Event Stream:

Yes, session events provide a log of tool loading status:

session.tools_available → tools loaded
session.tools_load_error or error → tools failed to load

Log Retrieval:
The SDK itself does not provide a built-in log retrieval API, but you can log the events or reactions as they arrive, and parse the event history to confirm each tool’s status.

Harness/Test harness:
During E2E tests, full event logs (including server logs) may be captured by the test harness. Check under test/harness/ for utilities.

References in the repo:

nodejs/src/client.ts
README.md (architecture, session events)
E2E: test/harness/server.ts, YAML examples in test/snapshots/

[Apokalypt]

Hi @john-mckillip
Well, I don't know if I should say thank you for this AI-generated response or if I should just say right away that the entire answer is wrong...

You base your entire answer on the assumption that the two events session.tools_available and session.tools_load_error exist. These two events do not exist at all...
And it's the same for the event error

---

=> Anyone with a real solution that he has tested please ?

[jsa4000]

Hi, Set log_level to all or debug, the go to ~/.copilot/logs to check what is happening

[Apokalypt]

Hi, Set log_level to all or debug, the go to ~/.copilot/logs to check what is happening

Thanks—at least, I can see what happened after the execution. However, ideally, I’d like to be able to detect it directly within the code, rather than relying on an external file :/

[stephentoub]

Closing as a duplicate of #1143 because this tracks the same gap around listing/confirming session-loaded MCP tools. This response was generated by Copilot.