AI Agents

Deslop tells your coding agent when similar code already exists, before it writes another copy. The agent asks; Deslop answers from the live analysis of the repository the agent is working in. Nothing is scheduled, nothing is batched, and no one has to remember to run a scan.

This page is for you, the human wiring it up. It covers what the MCP server offers and how to connect each client to it.

The instructions for the agent itself — the rule it follows before writing code, the similarity thresholds, the CLI fallback when MCP is unavailable, and how to parse the report — are on For AI. That page is written in the second person and addressed to the machine. Point your agent at that URL.

The paste-ready rule block for your project's AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md is in the agent recipe. It works with Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Continue, and Codex.

The MCP tools, all live

Only find-similar belongs in the authoring inner loop. Everything else is a read-only report query or a config tool you reach for on demand, so the agent's working context stays lean instead of carrying a wall of tool output.

Tool	When to call it
find-similar	Before writing new code — does an equivalent already exist? This is the prevention tool.
top-offenders	Worst clusters in the workspace, worst first. Start cleanup here.
cluster-by-id	Full member list and signals for one cluster you are about to merge.
report-for-file	Per-file cluster slice.
report-for-range	Per-selection cluster slice.
report-get	Whole-workspace report.
report-query	Filtered query over the report.
rescan	Force-refresh after large external changes.
list-embedding-models	Models the provider advertises.
set-embedding-model	Switch the same behavior, different code [Type-4] semantic model at runtime.
session-config	Inspect the running server's effective config.
schema-doc	Authoritative JSON schema for every response. Call once per session, not per response.

Every response is computed against the live workspace state. The editor server holds the live report in memory and refreshes it on every change (debounced, with a hard cap); the MCP server reads that live state over the local IPC endpoint on the next tool call. macOS and Linux use .deslop/cache/deslop.sock; Windows uses a token-gated TCP loopback endpoint discovered through .deslop/cache/deslop.port. There is no batch step.

Wire deslop-mcp into your client — point at the VSIX-bundled binary

deslop-mcp ships inside the VS Code extension VSIX. After you install the extension, every external MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Continue) should reference the unpacked VSIX binary by absolute path so the agent runs the exact binary the extension ships — version-locked to the VSIX, no PATH drift.

Once the extension is installed from the Marketplace, the binary lives at:

~/.vscode/extensions/nimblesite.deslop-live-<VERSION>-<platform>/bin/<platform>/deslop-mcp

<platform> is darwin-arm64, darwin-x64, linux-x64, linux-arm64, or win32-x64. <VERSION> is the installed extension version — bump it whenever you update the VSIX.

Claude Code

claude mcp add deslop -s user -- \
  ~/.vscode/extensions/nimblesite.deslop-live-<VERSION>-darwin-arm64/bin/darwin-arm64/deslop-mcp \
  --root .

Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)

[mcp_servers.deslop]
command = "/Users/you/.vscode/extensions/nimblesite.deslop-live-<VERSION>-darwin-arm64/bin/darwin-arm64/deslop-mcp"
args    = ["--root", "."]

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deslop": {
      "command": "/Users/you/.vscode/extensions/nimblesite.deslop-live-<VERSION>-darwin-arm64/bin/darwin-arm64/deslop-mcp",
      "args": ["--root", "/absolute/path/to/your/repo"]
    }
  }
}

Do not point an MCP client at a cargo install or target/release build. Building Deslop from source is for testing the change you just made; it is not a distribution channel. The repo deliberately ships no make install-binary target.

Homebrew / Scoop CLI users — point at the bare deslop-mcp on $PATH

If you installed the CLI with brew install nimblesite/tap/deslop or scoop install deslop, the package also puts deslop-mcp and deslop-lsp on your $PATH alongside deslop — the tap formula and Scoop manifest install all three binaries, version-locked to the release. No VSIX, no extension directory, no absolute path. Use the bare command:

claude mcp add deslop -s user -- deslop-mcp --root .

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deslop": {
      "command": "deslop-mcp",
      "args": ["--root", "."]
    }
  }
}

The same "command": "deslop-mcp" form works in Codex (~/.codex/config.toml), Cursor, and Continue. It is the right value for a checked-in .mcp.json or shared team config — every machine resolves it through $PATH.

Two things to know:

• There is no deslop mcp subcommand. The deslop CLI runs one-shot and CI audits only; MCP is served by the separate deslop-mcp binary.
• Building from source does not put anything on $PATH. Only brew / scoop do. Those package managers version the binary lock-step with the release; a cargo build does not.

The agent loop

The headline workflow is reactive, not batch:

1. The agent proposes a change. Before it writes the new code, it calls find-similar over the proposed snippet.
2. If find-similar returns a cluster above the similarity floor, the agent reuses the canonical occurrence or rewrites the call site.
3. As the agent edits files, the file watcher fires and the analysis refreshes. The MCP server serves the new state on the next tool call.
4. The agent re-queries top-offenders or report-for-file to confirm the cluster is gone. No re-run, no flag, no batch CLI invocation.

When MCP is not available — CI, a cold-cache audit, or an agent with no MCP client — the loop degrades to the deslop CLI, which runs the identical pipeline and emits the identical JSON. The incremental cache is on by default, so a re-run after an edit only re-parses the files that changed. The step-by-step fallback is on For AI.

What Deslop deliberately does not do

• It does not rewrite your code. Deslop finds, ranks, compares, and prevents duplication; extraction is your call.
• It does not fail CI unless you set a threshold yourself.
• It does not assume "near-miss = bug." Some duplication is intentional (test fixtures, bootstrapping). Deslop reports; you decide.
• It does not talk to the network unless you explicitly pick a remote embedding model.