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This repository was archived by the owner on Sep 23, 2025. It is now read-only.
This repository was archived by the owner on Sep 23, 2025. It is now read-only.

Support per-directory MCP configuration in dialectic test runner #4

@nikomatsakis

Description

@nikomatsakis

Enhancement: Flexible MCP Configuration

Currently dialectic has hardcoded MCP server configuration. We should extend it to support per-test-directory configuration.

Proposed approach:

  • Test directories can include an optional mcp-config.json file
  • This file specifies which MCP servers to load and their configurations
  • Dialectic automatically loads and uses this config when running tests in that directory

Example directory structure:

dialectic/tests/memory-basic/
├── .memories/
├── mcp-config.json
└── natural-phrases-test.yaml

Example mcp-config.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "socratic-shell": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "socratic_shell"],
      "env": {"SOCRATIC_SHELL_LOG": "/tmp/memory-debug.log"}
    }
  },
  "allowed_tools": ["mcp__socratic-shell__read_in"]
}

Benefits:

  • Tests can specify exactly which tools/servers they need
  • No hardcoded assumptions about available MCP servers
  • Easy to test different MCP configurations
  • Cleaner separation of test concerns

Current workaround: Hardcode memory bank server in dialectic runner for memory tests.

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