Your agent works with software packages.
MCP Apt lets your agent manage the software packages of a Linux environment. It can look up what is available and in which version, find which package a file came from, install, upgrade and remove packages, keep one from changing, look inside a package file, and fetch a package's source code. Each answer comes back as clear facts: what was installed, what failed and what was only a warning.
It is the environment's own package service, not a wrapper around the system's package tool, and it keeps its own records. It changes a shared environment, so a new connection does not get a private copy. The Tools page lists the 25 tools it offers.
What you gain over reading package command output.
Installing packages for an agent is easy to get wrong and hard to take back. Separate ways of looking and of changing make the careful order natural: inspect, change, then check.
Package questions, answered as facts
You ask "is curl available and which version?" and the agent reads the answer directly
- Typical alternative
- The agent runs package commands and parses their text
- Here
- The agent asks about versions, needs, file owners and installed state, and gets clear answers
Look before you change
The agent picks the package it needs before it alters the environment
- Typical alternative
- The agent installs to find out whether a package exists
- Here
- The agent reads the package information the environment already holds, without contacting a repository, so a candidate's version and needs are known before any change
Which package owns this file
A single request answers where a file came from
- Typical alternative
- Searching package file lists by hand
- Here
- The agent names the package that owns a file and lists the files of a package
Keep a package where it is
The supported upgrade route respects the recorded hold; other routes can still change it
- Typical alternative
- Editing package selections by hand
- Here
- The agent can mark packages and hold one at its current version, and tells you it did
Inspect package files and source
The agent reviews a package, or its source, before it trusts it
- Typical alternative
- Unpacking archives to read them
- Here
- The agent reads a package file without installing it, and fetches and unpacks a package's source
A result that says what happened
The agent reads a few facts and sees at once what worked and what did not
- Typical alternative
- A long log that the agent has to interpret
- Here
- An install returns a short summary: what was installed, what failed, any warnings and what had to be removed to resolve conflicts
Supplied separately, one entry to connect.
MCP Apt is not included in the MAIT image (mait-image); install the binary supplied to you. The environment you use has to supply the software sources and trusted keys it reads. It runs on Linux (amd64, arm64). On macOS and Windows, MCP Apt runs in the managed Linux environment that AIDC Launch provides. Your agent client starts it once you add one entry.
Treat the environment as shared and as one owner's package manager. Do not let MCP Apt and a native package manager change the same environment, and capture a recovery copy before the agent changes anything. MCP Apt verifies signed repository metadata, source-specific keys, index hashes and downloaded archive hashes. The environment owner chooses approved keys and protects caches. Authenticity does not make privileged package scripts safe, so keep the recovery copy and use approved repositories.
Where it sits in the MAIT toolkit.
Where to read on.
- Get started, Use cases and Tools