vincemic/ai-vsc-process-herder

VS Code Process Herder MCP Server

Enterprise-grade process orchestration for AI-assisted VS Code workflows (Model Context Protocol server).

Focus: start / monitor / heal / coordinate dev servers, tasks, and test runs safely for AI agents (Copilot, Claude, MCP CLI).

Quick Install

npm install -g vscode-process-herder-mcp

Or grab release tarball / executables: https://github.com/vincemic/ai-vsc-process-herder/releases

Minimal VS Code (settings.json)

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcpServers": {
    "process-herder": { "command": "vscode-process-herder" }
  }
}

Verify in Copilot Chat: list the available tools from process-herder.

Key Capabilities

• Task & direct process spawning (start-process, readiness probes)
• Health + metrics + logs + recovery strategies
• Test run orchestration (start-test-run backend/frontend/tests)
• Port inference & conflict insight
• Persistent state + reattach after restart

Most Used Tools

list-tasks, start-task, start-process, list-processes, get-health-summary, get-process-logs, start-test-run, get-test-run-status, abort-test-run.

Full catalog: see docs/tools.md.

Typical Prompt Pattern

Use the Process Herder MCP server to:
1. get-vscode-status
2. detect-project-type
3. list-tasks
4. start needed dev servers (readiness probes)
5. start-test-run (if tests)
6. monitor with get-health-summary

Documentation

• Overview & index: docs/README.md
• Install: docs/installation.md
• Usage & workflows: docs/usage.md
• Tools reference: docs/tools.md
• Architecture: docs/architecture.md
• Reliability & recovery: docs/reliability.md
• Testing strategy: docs/testing.md
• Release workflow: docs/releases.md
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md

Contributing

PRs welcome. Please add tests (Playwright) for new behavior where appropriate.

License

MIT

For deeper details, dive into the docs/ directory.