Servers and Agents

This document summarizes the server and agent management surface exposed by the project documentation.

Overview

The framework separates:

server definitions and tool connectivity
agent definitions and execution behavior

High-level model

flowchart TD
    HOST[Host or operator] --> SERVERS[MCP servers]
    HOST --> AGENTS[Agent configs]
    AGENTS --> TOOLS[Tool calls]
    TOOLS --> SERVERS
    AGENTS --> OUTPUT[Responses or outcomes]

What this area covers

Topic	Description
Server config	Define how tools are reached
Agent config	Define agent role, limits, and behavior
Validation	Check whether configuration is usable
Execution flow	Connect agents to tool-capable servers

Runtime hardening controls (host-facing)

For multi-agent orchestration, host code can now manipulate and monitor hardening state at runtime via SDK helpers in antikythera-sdk::agents.

API	Purpose
`configure_hardening(options_json)`	Apply max concurrency/task/step limits, default retry condition, and optional guardrail JSON config
`cancel_orchestrator()`	Trigger cooperative cancellation for active orchestration
`get_monitor_snapshot()`	Return live monitor snapshot JSON (budget + cancellation state)
`task_result_detail(task_result_json)`	Decode task metadata and error/routing detail without manual field mapping

options_json now also accepts an optional guardrails object. Example:

{
    "max_concurrent_tasks": 4,
    "default_retry_condition": "on_transient",
    "guardrails": {
        "timeout": {
            "max_timeout_ms": 2000,
            "require_explicit_timeout": true
        },
        "budget": {
            "max_task_steps": 8,
            "require_explicit_budget": true
        },
        "rate_limit": {
            "max_tasks": 10,
            "window_ms": 60000
        },
        "cancellation": true
    }
}

The decoded task_result_detail(...) payload now includes optional guardrail_name and guardrail_stage fields when a guardrail rejected a task.

Host integration hooks

Core now also exposes host hook middleware in antikythera_core::application::hooks for auth, correlation, policy, and telemetry integration. See HOOKS.md.

The WIT multi-agent-runner contract mirrors these operations through configure-hardening, cancel-orchestrator, get-monitor-snapshot, and task-result-detail.

Native streaming pipeline

Native CLI provider clients now emit streaming events while parsing provider chunked responses:

provider stream payload is parsed chunk-by-chunk,
each chunk emits a stream event in the LLM pipeline,
terminal sink prints chunks live to stderr so stdout remains protocol-safe.

This keeps interactive visibility in CLI mode while preserving structured stdout output (for JSON or automation consumers). The terminal stream sink is enabled with the CLI --stream flag.

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