Shell

Name: Shell
Author: HabaAndrei

byHabaAndrei

0•

Developer Tools

Deployment & DevOps

Productivity & Workflow

Empowers AI agents with direct access to the host operating system shell for executing commands and managing processes.

This project provides a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI agents robust, direct access to the host operating system shell. It tackles common challenges encountered when building coding agents, such as distinguishing between foreground and background command execution, managing process lifecycles with timeouts, and enabling agents to read output from live processes. Designed as a reference implementation, it offers a blueprint for structuring shell tools, handling complex aspects like graceful termination, and exposing these capabilities through a standardized interface for any MCP-compatible client.

Key Features

010 GitHub stars

02Inspect running background processes and retrieve their current state and open resources

03Detect the host operating system (Linux, macOS, Windows) for syntax adaptation

04Execute commands in foreground (with timeout) or background (returning PID)

05Gracefully terminate background processes with SIGTERM and SIGKILL fallback

06Standardized shell access for AI agents via MCP stdio transport

Use Cases

01Automate starting development servers or running long-duration builds via AI

02Allow AI agents to list files, inspect directories, and manage system processes

03Enable coding agents to perform development tasks directly on the host OS

04Integrate shell capabilities into LangChain, Claude Desktop, and other MCP clients