Adds `docs/cli-smoke-testing.md` — a copyable connect → list → call →
assert workflow for testing an arbitrary MCP server from a shell or a CI
job, plus index rows in the root README and a pointer from the CLI
README.
The gap this fills is a user-facing one. `clients/cli/README.md` is a
flag reference and `scripts/smoke-cli.mjs` is an internal end-to-end
check of the launcher → CLI path; neither tells someone how to compose
those flags into a check they run on every commit against their own
server.
Covers, in order: connecting over stdio/HTTP/SSE (including the `--`
separator, which splits the opposite way under `--cli`); `--format json`
and its `{result[, appInfo]}` envelope; asserting a tool exists with
`jq -e`; one representative `tools/call` and the `--tool-arg` vs
`--tool-args-json` coercion difference; the exit-code map and how to
branch on it; keeping OAuth non-interactive with `--stored-auth-only`
and an isolated `MCP_STORAGE_DIR`; and negative assertions — refusals,
a secret-shape scan of captured output, and `--strict` schema
portability. Ends with a complete script and a GitHub Actions job.
Every command and output shape in the guide was verified against the
bundled composable test servers over both stdio and HTTP rather than
transcribed from the reference, which corrected three claims that would
otherwise have shipped wrong:
- `--tool-arg zip=012` does not send `12`. `012` is not valid JSON, so
it is sent as the literal string. The real trap is `zip=10001`, which
does coerce to a number and is then rejected by a string schema.
- `if ! cmd; then status=$?` yields `0`, because `!` inverts the
pipeline's status — every failure class would look identical. The
guide uses `|| status=$?` and says why.
- The sample script does not report a failure class on its own; that is
the opt-in `case` block from §5.
The §8 script was run end to end against a live HTTP test server, and
exits 0/3/4/5/6 were each reproduced against a real server.
Closes#1886
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01KsKC3HniVF9dCZtDVbYp5B
Signed-off-by: cliffhall <cliff@futurescale.com>
ade7b5782d