GitHub user aicam added a comment to the discussion: Architecture discussion:
multiple agent tool calls vs. a dedicated TexeraMCP server for exposing Texera
functionality to the agent
My take: **inline tools should be the default for Texera-native actions; MCP is
for third-party systems.**
MCP earns its overhead when you integrate a system you *don't own* — e.g. a
stock-market feed in a finance app — where you consume someone else's server
instead of writing tools yourself. But our agent tools are thin adapters over
our *own* REST endpoints. Putting an MCP boundary between our agent and our own
API just adds a hop and a service to maintain, with no ownership line to
justify it.
**Proposal: make the endpoints themselves agent-ready, so adding a tool is zero
extra effort.** Instead of hand-writing a tool wrapper in `agent-service` per
endpoint, annotate the endpoint with the metadata an agent needs (description +
which params matter), and auto-register it as a tool.
```scala
// 1) Endpoint declares its agent metadata next to the JAX-RS annotations.
@AgentTool(
name = "list_datasets",
description = "List datasets the current user can access. Use before wiring
data into a workflow."
)
@GET @Path("/list")
@Produces(Array(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON))
def listDatasets(
@AgentParam("Filter by visibility: all | public | private", required = false)
@QueryParam("visibility") visibility: String = "all",
@Auth user: SessionUser // injected context — NOT exposed to the
agent
): List[DashboardDataset]
```
A registry scans these at startup and serves a manifest at `GET
/api/agent-tools`; `agent-service` turns each entry into a tool with **one
generic adapter**:
```ts
// 2) One adapter registers every annotated endpoint — no per-tool file.
for (const t of await fetchAgentToolManifest()) {
tools[t.name] = tool({
description: t.description,
inputSchema: jsonSchema(t.inputSchema),
execute: (args, { abortSignal }) =>
callBackend(t.http, args, { token: userToken, abortSignal }),
});
}
```
**Net effect:** a new agent capability = an endpoint + two annotations. No new
TS file, no hand-synced schema, descriptions live with the code, and
auth/context params are filtered out automatically.
*(Sketch to frame the idea, not a finished design — open to iterating on the
annotation surface and how read-only vs. side-effecting tools get gated.)*
GitHub link:
https://github.com/apache/texera/discussions/5610#discussioncomment-17256747
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