Add Agent Bridge addon (AI control bridge + MCP server) - #934
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brianmcaudill wants to merge 1 commit into
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Add Agent Bridge addon (AI control bridge + MCP server)#934brianmcaudill wants to merge 1 commit into
brianmcaudill wants to merge 1 commit into
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Agent Bridge embeds a control bridge in a running Gramps session so an AI agent can drive the live application: read and modify the tree, operate the UI, and create and load plugins on the fly. It ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server so any MCP-capable AI can drive Gramps through standard tools. The gramplet polls a watched control directory on the GTK main thread and executes submitted Python in a persistent namespace with dbstate, db, uistate, gui and gramps_lib bound; the MCP server is a thin stdio adapter over that directory. No network port is opened. As defense-in-depth, every request must carry a shared secret token. The gramplet generates it on first run at ~/.gramps_agent/token (owner-only) and refuses any request without it; the MCP server and the debug CLI read the same file automatically. GRAMPS_AGENT_TOKEN overrides the file.
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Draft / RFC — submitting for discussion per CONTRIBUTING's guidance on novel addons, especially around the security model below.
What it is
Agent Bridge embeds a control bridge inside a running Gramps session so an AI agent can drive the live application — read/modify the tree, operate the UI, and create and load plugins on the fly. It ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, so any MCP-capable AI (Claude, etc.) can drive Gramps through standard tools with no custom glue.
Architecture
The gramplet polls a control directory on the GTK main thread via
GLib.timeout_add, so injected code can safely touch the database and the GUI. Code runs in a persistent namespace withdbstate,db,uistate,gui,gramps_lib, andbridgebound (assignresultto return a value). The MCP server is a thin stdio adapter over that directory — it needs themcppackage, not Gramps' interpreter.Tools exposed:
gramps_status,gramps_eval,gramps_install_plugin,gramps_people_count,gramps_search_people,gramps_active_person,gramps_set_active_person.Security (please weigh in)
This executes arbitrary Python at the user's privileges, by design — comparable to the built-in Python Shell gramplet, but drivable by an external agent. Mitigations: no network port (control is file-only under
~/.gramps_agent, i.e. the user-account trust boundary),audience=DEVELOPER, and prominent warnings in the README. Happy to add a token gate (a secret file the bridge checks per request) for defense-in-depth if maintainers prefer.Testing
Verified end-to-end on GrampsAIO 6.0.8 (Windows) against an 868-person tree: bridge ping, live
eval(db/uistate access), name search, on-the-fly plugin install with auto-registration (reg_plugins(..., rescan=True)), and a full MCP client→server→bridge→Gramps round-trip exercising the tools above.Notes for reviewers
gramps_target_version="6.0"onmaintenance/gramps60; can port to 6.1.gramps_mcp_server.pyandagent_send.pyare a standalone MCP server and a debug CLI; they are not registered as Gramps plugins.po/template.potwas hand-generated (no gettext toolchain on the dev box); happy to regenerate via the build.