Josiah CoadandClaude Opus 5 4dd6f7101a feat(langchain): MCP Apps (SEP-1865) tool visibility in langchain.mcp
An MCP App is a tool that returns a user interface instead of text: it carries
a `ui://` resource in its `_meta.ui`, a host renders that in a sandboxed frame
beside the conversation, and the tool's result goes into it. The person moves
a slider and approves rather than reading a table and typing "yes, do that."

That makes a tool's audience part of its definition, and it puts one
obligation on anyone building an agent against such a server: a tool marked
`visibility: ["app"]` belongs to the app and MUST be kept out of the model's
tool list. The app exists so a person decides, and a model that can call the
submit tool can skip the person.

`langchain.mcp.apps` is that, and only that:

    async with Client(url, extensions=[MCP_APPS_EXTENSION]) as client:
        async with MCPAdapter(client) as adapter:
            tools = filter_model_visible_tools(await adapter.list_tools())

Two details are easy to get backwards, and both fail silently rather than
loudly, which is why they belong in a library and not in every host:

ABSENT `visibility` MEANS BOTH AUDIENCES. It is absent on every tool on every
server that has never heard of this extension. Treating absent as "neither"
costs such a server half its tools, with nothing raised.

`_meta` MOVES WHEN A TOOL IS ADAPTED. An MCP `Tool` carries it on `.meta`; the
same tool after `MCPAdapter` keeps it under `metadata["mcp"]["tool"]["_meta"]`.
A host filters after adapting, so reading only the first shape hands the model
every app-only tool on the server. There is a test for exactly that path.

`MCP_APPS_EXTENSION` is what a host advertises during `initialize`. It is inert
against a server that always sends `_meta.ui` and load-bearing against one that
gates on the capability: the `ext-apps` SDK ships `getUiCapability` for that,
and its documented example registers a text-only tool for a client that did not
advertise, leaving a host with working tools and no apps.

Rendering the view, reading the `ui://` resource and proxying a view's own
`tools/call` are the browser-facing half and are not here.

13 tests; 91 pass in `tests/unit_tests/mcp`. ruff, format and mypy clean.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-21 16:36:37 -05:00
2026-09-21 12:44:33 -04:00
2023-06-16 15:42:14 -07:00
2026-09-04 11:03:34 +02:00
2026-09-09 17:02:42 -04:00
2023-11-28 17:34:27 -08:00
2026-08-17 15:03:26 -04:00

The agent engineering platform.

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LangChain is a framework for building agents and LLM-powered applications. It helps you chain together interoperable components and third-party integrations to simplify AI application development — all while future-proofing decisions as the underlying technology evolves.

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Just getting started? Check out Deep Agents — a higher-level package built on LangChain for agents that have built-in capabilities for common usage patterns such as planning, subagents, file system usage, and more.

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uv add langchain
from langchain.chat_models import init_chat_model

model = init_chat_model("openai:gpt-5.5")
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For an equivalent JS/TS library, check out LangChain.js.

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For developing, debugging, and deploying AI agents and LLM applications, see LangSmith.

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