aruba-central-mcp: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

Repository overview

aruba-central-mcp is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server exposing Aruba Central (GreenLake New Central API) data — APs, switches, wireless clients — to AI assistants over stdio transport. Built on the official mcp Python SDK's MCPServer (aruba_central_mcp/server.py), with ArubaClient (aruba_central_mcp/client.py) handling OAuth2 Client Credentials auth, httpx, and automatic pagination.

See CLAUDE.md for the authoritative command list and architecture notes — read it before reviewing changes to client.py, server.py, or __main__.py.

Build & validate

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e ".[test]"
.venv/bin/pytest -v                        # all tests
.venv/bin/pytest -v tests/test_client.py   # client tests only
.venv/bin/pytest -v tests/test_server.py   # server tests only
python3 -m py_compile aruba_central_mcp/client.py   # syntax check

This mirrors .github/workflows/test.yml (pip install -e ".[test]" + pytest tests/ -v, matrix over Python 3.10–3.14, plus one Windows job specifically to catch stdio newline regressions — see modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk#2433), plus a lint job running ruff check . at the pinned version. Lint findings are therefore already enforced and not worth restating; formatting is not gated, so ruff format nits are still noise.

What to focus review on in this repo

1. This is a stdio MCP server — stdout is a JSON-RPC channel, not a log

Any print() or library logging that writes to stdout (instead of stderr) corrupts the protocol stream for the connected client. Flag any new code path that writes to stdout directly, uses a logger without an explicit stderr handler, or lets a dependency's default logging config leak through. This exact bug class is why CI runs a dedicated Windows job (stdio newline handling is platform-sensitive) — treat it as a real, previously-hit failure mode, not a theoretical one.

2. MCPServer already wraps tool returns — don't ask for manual envelope code