garden in your coding agent: the MCP server

garden mcp runs a local MCP server over standard input and output. A coding agent that speaks MCP starts it as a subprocess and calls six tools, one for each of garden's reads. It comes with the garden command (the command's guide); nothing else needs installing.

Availability today. The garden command is built locally and is not published to any registry, and there is no public download. Its hosted endpoint is https://garden-api.fernworks.dev/ and requires a valid access key. The server itself starts and lists its tools without a key and without contacting the service.

Harnesses#

garden's MCP server is proven in Codex. It is not yet proven in Claude Code with the current package and service. Every other MCP client stays unverified until it is proven: it may work, and garden makes no claim that it does.

Codex#

codex mcp add garden --env GARDEN_API_KEY=<your key> -- garden mcp

This follows the form codex mcp add --help documents: it adds garden to the MCP servers in ~/.codex/config.toml, started as garden mcp with the key in its environment. Add --url <endpoint> after garden mcp to use another endpoint than the hosted default.

Claude Code#

claude mcp add garden -e GARDEN_API_KEY=<your key> -- garden mcp

This follows the form claude mcp add --help documents. Use --scope user to make garden available in every project, or --scope project to share the entry through the project's .mcp.json. Do not commit a file that holds your key. Add --url <endpoint> after garden mcp to use another endpoint than the hosted default. This configuration is not yet proven with the current package and service.

What the server fixes at start#

The server reads the key from GARDEN_API_KEY and the endpoint from its own --url flag, then GARDEN_URL, then the hosted default, once, when it starts. No tool argument can name another endpoint or key, and no tool asks the model for a secret, runs a command or reads a file of your project. Standard output carries the MCP protocol only; the server's own diagnostics go to standard error. The server stops when its input ends.

When garden mcp's own command line is refused (an unknown flag, or --help or --version after mcp), no server starts: standard output stays empty, standard error has one line, garden mcp: invalid-request: SUBJECT, and the exit status is 2. Its help is garden help mcp.

The tools#

Every tool takes the optional arguments callId (your identity for the call, echoed in the reply) and timeoutMs (the call's one deadline in milliseconds, at most 30000). A call with any argument a tool does not list is refused whole.

Tool	Arguments	What it reads
`garden_snapshot`	`snapshot`: `current` or an exact id	the publication, `current` resolved once
`garden_vocabulary`	`snapshot`	every value a facet, kind or responsibility may carry
`garden_list`	`snapshot`; at least one value among `language`, `purpose`, `technology`, `task`, `concern`, `kind`, `responsibility`, each a list	the matching units' listing metadata, in id order; nothing is ranked
`garden_read`	`snapshot`, `ids`; optional `requires`, `exclude`, `maxUnits` (at most 16), `maxBytes` (at most 262144)	full units, their exact text with revision and content hash
`garden_resolve`	`snapshot`, `anchor`	the unit that carries the anchor
`garden_changes`	`from`, `to`: two exact ids	a comparison by revision and content hash; no unit text

Resolve current once with garden_snapshot, then pass the exact id it answered to every later tool, so the whole task reads one publication.

What a tool answers#

Each tool answers with garden's reply document, garden.result/v1, as the tool result's structured content and as its text: the same document the garden command prints, described in the command's guide. A refusal is marked as an error result, with its typed error.kind, so an agent never reads a refused call as guidance. A tool call the client cancels stops its read.

Without a key#

Without a key the server still starts, and your agent can list the six tools. Every tool call then answers unauthorized, marked as an error, and sends nothing.