dtoro 11c18e8956 perf(agent): cache the MCP tool list per client (F1)
Fix F1 of plans/2026-07-11-nomos-agent-code-review.md, the last item.
buildTools called listToolsFull (a tools/list MCP round-trip) at the start of
EVERY chat turn, including every auto-continuation resume — the tool list is
static for the lifetime of one MCP connection, changing only when the api
process re-registers tools (a restart, which this client already detects and
reacts to via reconnectLocked). Re-fetching it every single turn was
avoidable network+parsing work on the hot path.

mcpClient now caches the parsed tool list after its first fetch, guarded by
its own mutex (kept separate from the request-serializing mu so a cache
check never contends with an in-flight doRequest call). reconnectLocked
clears the cache — an api restart may have changed what's registered, so a
stale cache would be wrong, not just slow. fleetSnapshot's get_health_summary
call is deliberately left uncached — it's meant to be "as of now."

Since each session gets its own client (the per-session pool from the
concurrency work), this caches per-task-conversation rather than globally: a
task's FIRST turn still pays the round-trip, every turn after reuses the
cached list — which is exactly the case that mattered (long-running,
heavily-autonomous tasks with many auto-continuation resumes).

Verified live via the api's request log: a brand-new session's first turn
made 3 MCP calls (initialize, tools/list, get_health_summary); a second turn
on the SAME session made exactly 1 (only get_health_summary) — tools/list
correctly skipped.

This completes the implementation order in
plans/2026-07-11-nomos-agent-code-review.md — every A/B/D/E/F finding from
the review (excluding C1, explicitly deferred per operator instruction) is
now fixed, tested, and verified live.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-11 20:30:07 +02:00

Oikos

Agentic homelab operating system written in Go. Single binary (cmd/oikos), Docker-deployed on mac-mini, with a standalone Nomos MCP agent gateway (cmd/nomos). Manages the hubris Proxmox homelab autonomously — observes state, classifies actions against policy, executes approved procedures over SSH, learns from outcomes, and escalates when uncertain.

For agents running on enrolled clients: start with AGENTS.md. For client machines: see CLIENTS.md. For developers: see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Quick start

# Dev stack (postgres + api + scheduler + notifier)
docker compose --profile dev up -d

# Full stack (adds Nomos agent gateway)
docker compose --profile full up -d

# Build standalone binary
go build -o bin/oikos -tags timetzdata ./cmd/oikos

# Run all roles in one process (dev mode)
OIKOS_DATABASE_URL="postgres://oikos:oikos_dev@localhost:5432/oikos?sslmode=disable" \
  go run ./cmd/oikos all

Architecture

                  ┌──────────────────────────────────┐
                  │         mac-mini (Docker)         │
                  │                                   │
  Workstation ─── │  nomos (8092) ──MCP── api (8090) │
  (mesh)          │    MCP gateway      REST + MCP    │
                  │                                   │
                  │  scheduler ── notifier ── postgres │
                  │  (observe)    (Matrix)   (Timescale)│
                  └──────────────────────────────────┘
Component Port Role
oikos api 8090 REST API + MCP server (15 tools)
oikos scheduler Probe runner, signal lifecycle, metrics
oikos notifier Approval tokens, Matrix alerts
nomos serve 8092 MCP client gateway, query routing

Phases

Phase Status Description
1 — Ontology + DB TimescaleDB, migrations, seeds, blast_radius
2 — API OpenAPI-first REST + MCP, auth, SSE, audit
3 — Control loop Scheduler, actuator, learning, classifier, notifier
4 — Nomos agent Standalone MCP client gateway, agent activity
5 — Secrets Infisical backend + SOPS fallback, rotation runbooks
6 — Deploy CI pipeline, cutover checklist, watchdog, rollback

Full plan: plans/2026-07-06-consolidate-oikos-control-plane-onto-mac-mini.md.

Operations

API endpoints

curl http://localhost:8090/api/v1/entities?type=service  # fleet
curl http://localhost:8090/api/v1/health                  # fleet health
curl http://localhost:8090/api/v1/agent-activity          # agent log

Nomos queries

# Structured tool call
curl -X POST localhost:8092/query -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"tool":"get_blast_radius","args":{"entity_id":"service:authentik"}}'

# Natural language
curl -X POST localhost:8092/query -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"what depends on authentik?"}'

CLI

oikos migrate     # apply DB migrations
oikos seed        # ingest ontology/inventory/policy seeds
oikos export      # export DB state to YAML
oikos api         # serve REST + MCP
oikos scheduler   # run observe loop
oikos notifier    # run notification loop
oikos all         # all roles in one process
oikos secret list # enumerate SOPS secrets
oikos secret migrate  # SOPS → Infisical

Repo layout

cmd/oikos/          Go entry point — single binary
cmd/nomos/          Nomos MCP client gateway
internal/           Go packages (httpapi, mcp, scheduler, actuator, learning,
                    notifier, policy, secrets, db, config, ontology, domain,
                    knowledge)
api/openapi.yaml    API contract (OpenAPI 3.1)
migrations/         Forward-only SQL migrations (TimescaleDB)
seeds/              Bootstrap YAML (ontology, inventory, policy, knowledge)
compose/            Dockerfiles + Caddy config
scripts/            Deploy, watchdog, verification, rollback
nomos/              Nomos config, persona, skills
.agents/            Agent instruction files, shared conventions, skills
archive/            Historical reference (legacy wiki, plans, SOPS backups)
plans/              Design documents (active + done)
docs/adr/           Architecture decision records

For agents

See AGENTS.md for the full orientation. Quick reference:

  • Source of truth: DB (runtime) then seeds (bootstrap). Old wiki is archived at archive/knowledge/ — use MCP search_knowledge instead.
  • Mutations: classify against policy, request approval for destructive/config_mutation
  • Secrets: Infisical (primary) or SOPS (fallback) — never hardcode
Description
Agentic OS for running a Homelab
Readme 37 MiB
Languages
Go 53.1%
Svelte 25.7%
TypeScript 14%
Shell 3.8%
Python 1.7%
Other 1.5%