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fix(proxy): route through undici's own fetch and keep undici external

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Corporate-proxy users could not connect to any remote MCP server from v2.
Two independent defects, both reported in #2067.

1. The web and TUI bundles inlined undici. It was declared in the root and
   `clients/cli` manifests but named in no client's tsup `external` list, and
   tsup auto-externalizes only what the *nearest* manifest declares — so
   esbuild inlined 1.05MB of it into `clients/{web,tui}/build/`. undici is
   CommonJS, so the emitted chunk's `require("assert")` hit esbuild's ESM
   `__require` shim and threw `Dynamic require of "assert" is not supported`.
   The rejected `import()` surfaced as "the `undici` package is not available",
   telling users to install a package that was already present — and could not
   have helped, because the specifier had been rewritten to a relative chunk at
   build time.

2. `withProxyDispatcher` injected a *userland* undici `EnvHttpProxyAgent` into
   Node's *built-in* fetch. That couples two different copies of undici at the
   dispatcher handler interface, which is not stable across majors: Node 22
   embeds undici 6, Node 24 embeds 7, Node 26 embeds 8. A userland undici 8
   agent handed a built-in undici 7 handler is rejected with
   `fetch failed: invalid onRequestStart method`, and the request never leaves
   the process. So fixing the bundling alone would only have converted the
   web/TUI failure into the CLI's.

Both halves of the pair now come from userland undici — its `fetch` and its
`EnvHttpProxyAgent` — which keeps the handler inside one copy and works
unchanged from the Node 22.19 engine floor through Node 26. Deleting the
wrapper in favor of Node's native `NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY` was not an option:
measured, it is unsupported on 22.19 (the floor) and only lands mid-22.x.

Because undici's `Response` is a different class from `globalThis.Response`,
the proxied fetch re-wraps each response as a genuine global `Response`,
streaming preserved. Without that, `res instanceof Response` is false for
callers that test it — including the SDK's OAuth error formatter, which would
degrade every message to `Raw body: [object Response]`.

The proxy now sits at the bottom of the fetch stack (`environment.fetch` for
the Node clients, and the `createTransportNode` default for the web backend,
its one caller that supplies no `fetchFn`) rather than wrapping the transport's
fetch. Proxying means *substituting* the fetch, not decorating one, so wrapping
a supplied `fetchFn` would discard it; installing it underneath lets
InspectorClient's own wrappers compose over it. A side effect worth having:
OAuth discovery and token requests go through `environment.fetch` too, and were
never proxied before.

Guarding it:

- `undici` is added to all three tsup `external` lists and removed from
  `clients/cli/package.json`, so it is root-declared only, per the placement
  rule in AGENTS.md. The two installs had already drifted (root 8.5.0 vs cli
  8.9.0).
- New `npm run verify:bundle-externals` fails if any package a client declares
  external was inlined into that client's bundle anyway. It reads the *built
  output*, not the config — those two disagreed for four releases — and derives
  what to check from each client's own `external` array, so a newly
  externalized package is covered without editing the guard. Verified against
  the real pre-fix artifact, which it flags.
- The proxy tests now drive a real forwarding proxy rather than a mock. That
  matters: defect 2 was a runtime interface mismatch, which no mock can catch
  because no mock ever dispatches.

AGENTS.md's must-not-bundle rule (added by #2082) is extended with why undici
slipped past it, and notes the `node -e` trap — probing the bundled chunk with
`node -e` falsely succeeds, because it exposes a global `require` that
satisfies esbuild's guard.

Closes #2067

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01JTHVxSu8AUgHRLvo1ntZ8H
Signed-off-by: cliffhall <cliff@futurescale.com>
This commit is contained in:
cliffhall 2026-08-23 21:03:31 -04:00
commit d90a955164
1 changed files with 758 additions and 133 deletions
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10
clients/cli/README.md
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@ -88,9 +88,15 @@ The file is the only durable way to give a run its roots: there is no roots flag
### HTTP proxy support
Connections to remote HTTP/SSE servers honor the conventional proxy environment variables: `HTTPS_PROXY` / `HTTP_PROXY` (and their lowercase forms) select the proxy, and `NO_PROXY` exempts hosts. This applies to the Node transport shared by the CLI and the web backend — no inspector-specific flag is needed. When a proxy variable is set, outbound requests are routed through undici's `EnvHttpProxyAgent`.
Connections to remote HTTP/SSE servers honor the conventional proxy environment variables: `HTTPS_PROXY` / `HTTP_PROXY` (and their lowercase forms) select the proxy, and `NO_PROXY` exempts hosts. This applies to every Node client — CLI, TUI, and the web backend — with no inspector-specific flag. It also covers **OAuth discovery and token requests**, which run through the same fetch.
Proxy routing is powered by the [`undici`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/undici) package (`^8.5.0`, which requires Node `>= 22.19.0` — the inspector's supported floor). It is imported lazily only when a proxy variable is set, so runs without a proxy configured pay no cost.
Proxy routing is powered by the [`undici`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/undici) package (declared in the **root** manifest only; `^8.x` requires Node `>= 22.19.0`, the Inspector's supported floor). It is imported lazily on the first request and only when a proxy variable is set, so runs without a proxy configured pay no cost.
**Both halves of the pair come from userland undici — its `fetch` _and_ its `EnvHttpProxyAgent` ([#2067](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/inspector/issues/2067)).** The obvious-looking alternative is to hand the agent to Node's built-in `fetch` as a `dispatcher`, which is what v2.0.0–2.3.0 did. That couples two _different copies_ of undici at the dispatcher handler interface, and that interface is not stable across majors: Node 22 embeds undici 6, Node 24 embeds 7, Node 26 embeds 8. A userland undici 8 agent handed a built-in undici 7 handler is rejected outright — `fetch failed: invalid onRequestStart method` — and the request never leaves the process. Keeping both sides inside one copy is what makes proxying work unchanged from the Node 22.19 floor through Node 26. (Node's own `NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY` is not a substitute: it is unsupported at our 22.19 engine floor.)
Because undici's `Response` is a different class from `globalThis.Response`, the proxied fetch re-wraps each response as a genuine global `Response`, streaming preserved. Without that, `res instanceof Response` is `false` for callers that test it — including the MCP SDK, whose OAuth error formatter would degrade every message to `Raw body: [object Response]`.
`undici` is declared **only** in the root `package.json`, and every client's tsup config lists it as `external`. Both halves matter: tsup auto-externalizes what the _nearest_ manifest declares, so without the explicit entry the web and TUI bundles inlined it — and a CommonJS package inlined into an ESM bundle throws `Dynamic require of "assert" is not supported` the first time it is used. `npm run verify:bundle-externals` is the durable guard.
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