vscode.lm.tools does not include tools from extensions/MCP.json

[rwoll]

vscode.lm.tools does not include MCP- or extension-contributed tools unless they are activated and started.

Chat auto-starts MCPs, so vscode.lm.tools or another programmatic API should mirror the Chat behavior.

[connor4312]

This is as designed. The tools are not known until the server is started, and we only start those servers when a chat message is sent. After that point they become available in vscode.lm.tools. We would not change this because there's no reason to auto-start MCP servers when the application is started, it would just reduce our performance.

[rwoll]

@connor4312 - is there an API/executeCommand to trigger what chat is doing to auto-start all? Agree it should not be the default, but it's needed for some automation contexts.

Apart from automation, if an extension is consuming the lm.tools API outside a chat context and does truly want a list of all tools — at the cost of some startup performance — how would they get it today?