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Install and configure mcp-apt

Know which environment MCP Apt manages, connect it to your agent, and inspect a package and its installed state without changing anything.

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Steps

Four steps from connection to a first package check.

MCP Apt is an MCP tool for the packages of a Linux environment you supply. You find out which environment it manages, point your agent at it, and begin by only looking: nothing in this guide changes a package.

  1. Check the version
    $ mcp-apt version
    Step 1 of 4

    Know which environment it manages

    MCP Apt is not included in the MAIT image; install the binary supplied to you. It runs on Linux (amd64, arm64). On macOS and Windows, MCP Apt runs in the managed Linux environment that AIDC Launch provides. Ask whoever supplies the environment which one it manages, whether package changes are allowed there, and who owns recovery. Package changes affect that shared environment: a new connection does not create a private copy.

    If you have the executable, check that it runs:

    What you get

    The environment, its owner and what the agent may change, written down before you start.

  2. mcpServers entry
    {
  "mcpServers": {
    "apt": {
      "command": "mcp-apt",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}
    Step 2 of 4

    Connect it to your agent

    Any client that accepts an mcpServers launch entry uses this shape. Place it where your client keeps server configuration, use the absolute path of the supplied executable if your client does not inherit your PATH, and restart the client.

    Leave MAIT_LOG_FORMAT unset: its json value corrupts the protocol stream. Through MCP Registry the same server is added once with mcp_registry_add, and its tools carry the apt__ prefix.

    What you get

    A client that starts the server on its own, and an agent that can call the apt tools.

  3. Illustrative conversation
    YouIs curl available, and which version would I get?
    Tool callapt_search { "pattern": "curl" }
    What happensThe result has pattern, count and the packages whose name contains curl, each with its version, architecture and description.
    Tool callapt_show { "packages": ["curl"] }
    What happensThe candidate's version, architecture and dependency information. A package that is not in the cache fails the call.
    Agentcurl is available. I only looked; nothing was installed. An empty search can also mean the package information is empty or unavailable, so I would check that before I concluded the package does not exist.
    Step 3 of 4

    Inspect a candidate

    Start with a package name. apt_search is a case-insensitive match on the names in the cached package information, not a search of descriptions, and apt_show reads the candidate's version, architecture and dependencies. Neither one changes a package.

    What you get

    The candidate version of a package, with nothing changed.

  4. Illustrative conversation
    YouIs curl installed here?
    Tool callapt_status { "package": "curl" }
    What happensThe package, version, architecture, status and install reason. A package with no record returns an error.
    Agentcurl has no record in this environment's package state. That does not prove the program is absent, because the records are not a full filesystem inventory.
    Step 4 of 4

    Read the installed state

    apt_status returns a package's record. Its status is the package's state, such as Installed, HalfConfigured or ConfigFiles. A package with no record returns an error.

    A change needs authorization for that task: read Tools first, and check both the recorded state and the capability you needed afterwards.

    What you get

    What the environment's package records say about a package, and what they cannot say.

Result

A connection that looks before it changes.

MCP Apt is connected and can read candidates and installed state. There is no dry-run mode: an install, an upgrade or a removal acts on the shared environment at once, so keep to inspection until the task is authorized to change packages.

Next

Where to go next.