tool-surface

A reference for the 13 tools exposed by an MCP server. MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is a way for an AI assistant to call typed tools provided by another program.

In plain words
What is it for?
Launching and checking USGS gauge workflows, building basin specifications, running lower-level jobs, and locating the resulting evidence summaries.
Why use it?
It explains which tool starts the governed workflow and which tools handle lower-level basin operations. This helps users choose the correct entry point.

Agent

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/ai-hydro/swatplus-builder/tool-surface
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AI-Hydro/swatplus-builder
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 627 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00627
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00313
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00125
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00063

Measured 2d ago against content hash 15ab27727882, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

tool-surface scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

docs_site/agents/tool-surface.md · 57 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 57 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Tool surface

The MCP server exposes 13 typed tools in three tiers. The names below are the exact tool names registered in src/swatplus_builder/mcp/server.py.

Tier 0 — Canonical governed workflow (2 tools)

This is the entry point for "model gauge X". It is the only MCP path that produces a claim-governed evidence bundle.

Tool Purpose
run_workflow launch the canonical workflow (build → run → lock → calibrate → verify → evidence bundle) for a USGS gauge ID as a detached background process; returns immediately with out_dir, pid, and the equivalent_cli string for reproducibility
workflow_status poll a launch: running / completed / failed, with evidence_summary_path and blocker class once finished

A full run takes tens of minutes — the background launch keeps the MCP call fast, and the agent polls workflow_status between other work. On completion, summarize only from the evidence bundle.

Tier 1 — Basin workflow (8 tools)

Tool Purpose
build_project validate a basin spec and write a build manifest (does not build a runnable project — use run_workflow)
run_basin run the lower-level pipeline orchestrator (no evidence bundle — prefer run_workflow)
calibrate standalone pySWATPlus-bridge calibration (non-authoritative path)
propose_parameters suggest calibration parameters for a basin
compare_runs compare metrics across runs
query_artifacts look up artifacts from a run directory
diagnose_failure structured diagnosis of a failed run
validate validate a project / run against expectations

Tier 2 — Benchmark / readiness (3 tools)

Tool Purpose
lock_benchmark seal a baseline with hashes (start of the locked protocol)
locked_calibrate calibrate against a lock and verify
readiness_table summarize lock/calibration/verification across basins

How tools enforce governance

The tools are deliberately typed and narrow. An agent cannot reach past them to, say, hand-edit a metric into the evidence bundle or promote a claim tier. Claim tiers are emitted by the package from gate results; the tools expose the operations (build, run, calibrate, verify, query) but not the authority to override an evidence-backed decision.

Read the full file on GitHub · 57 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 57 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 15ab27727882

Subscribe to this mod's changes

tool-surface is an agent published in the GitHub repository AI-Hydro/swatplus-builder (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 627 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.