toolnexus

Give any LLM the tools a coding agent has: MCP servers, agent skills, your own functions, HTTP endpoints, remote agents and built-in shell/file tools, all behind one Tool type.

To a model, an MCP tool, a skill, a Rust function and a remote agent are the same thing: a name, a description and a JSON schema. toolnexus loads them all into one toolkit, emits the schema for OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini, and runs the tool-calling loop for you.

It is vendor-neutral, async on tokio, and behaves the same as the toolnexus libraries for JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, C#, Elixir and Clojure. The same config gives the same tools and the same output in every language.

📖 Documentation · Rust API guide · Examples

Install

[dependencies]
toolnexus = "0.25"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
serde_json = "1"

Quick start

An agent with the MCP servers from your mcp.json, the skills in ./skills, and one Rust function as a tool:

use serde_json::json;
use toolnexus::client::{ClientOptions, Style, create_client};
use toolnexus::{McpConfigInput, ToolkitOptions, create_toolkit, define_tool};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let weather = define_tool(
        "get_weather",
        "Current weather for a city",
        Some(json!({"type": "object", "properties": {"city": {"type": "string"}}, "required": ["city"]})),
        |args, _ctx| async move { Ok::<_, String>(format!("Sunny in {}", args["city"].as_str().unwrap_or("?"))) },
    );

    let tk = create_toolkit(ToolkitOptions {
        mcp_config: Some(McpConfigInput::Path("mcp.json".into())),
        skills_dir: vec!["skills".into()],
        extra_tools: vec![weather],
        ..Default::default()
    })
    .await?;

    let client = create_client(ClientOptions {
        base_url: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1".into(), // reads OPENROUTER_API_KEY
        style: Style::OpenAI,
        model: "openai/gpt-4o-mini".into(),
        ..Default::default()
    });

    let result = client.run("What's the weather in Chennai?", &tk).await?;
    println!("{}", result.text);
    tk.close().await;
    Ok(())
}

An API key from the environment is sent only to the host it belongs to: OPENAI_API_KEY to api.openai.com, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to api.anthropic.com, OPENROUTER_API_KEY to openrouter.ai. For any other base_url (Ollama, vLLM, a gateway), set api_key or api_key_env.

What's in the box

Embeddable MCP server

tk.mcp_handler(cfg) is an MCP server you mount on your own hyper / axum router, behind your own TLS, CORS and OAuth (SPEC §7C.1). Every policy is a hook: authenticate (401 + www_authenticate), list_tools per request (a tool outside it is never executed), before_call (allow / deny / confirm — confirm asks the client over MCP elicitation, or returns your shaped fallback), on_call, server_info, resources and prompts, pluggable session ids or stateless. handler.notify_tools_changed() tells connected clients to re-list. Tools and hooks read the caller with mcp_request_context(&ctx) (identity, headers, session id, params._meta).

use toolnexus::mcp_handler::{McpDecision, McpHandlerConfig, McpIdentity};

let handler = tk.mcp_handler(McpHandlerConfig {
    authenticate: Some(Arc::new(|rc| { let ok = rc.header("authorization") == "Bearer s3cret";
        Box::pin(async move { if ok { Ok(Arc::new("alice".to_string()) as McpIdentity) } else { Err("no".into()) } }) })),
    before_call: Some(Arc::new(|_, tool, _| Box::pin(async move {
        Ok(if tool.name == "delete_record" { McpDecision::confirm("Really delete?") } else { McpDecision::allow() }) }))),
    ..Default::default()
});
// hyper: `handler` is a hyper::service::Service; any framework: `handler.handle(req).await`.

Run cargo run --example mcp_handler for a self-contained demo (bearer auth, per-user tools, confirm via elicitation and via a nonce fallback).

MCP 2026-07-28 (opt-in)

List "2026-07-28" in protocol_versions and the same handler also speaks the stateless 2026-07-28 wire (SPEC §7C.2): server/discover, header validation, resultType + serverInfo _meta, and MRTR — a confirm or a §10 tool suspension comes back as input_required and the client's retry carries the answer (the tool sees it as ctx.answer). ["2026-07-28"] serves only that wire; ["2026-07-28", "2025-06-18"] serves both on one mount. It is never a default, and initialize never negotiates it. list_skills publishes skills through the skills extension (skills/list, skills/get, resources/read of skill:// URIs); load_mcp_skills(dir) builds the list from a skills folder.

McpServerAuth makes the handler an OAuth protected resource: auth.authenticate() is the authenticate hook (bearer RS256 JWT checked against the issuer's JWKS, or your own verify; 401 invalid_token / 403 insufficient_scope with the exact challenge, per-tool scopes on the 2026 wire) and auth.metadata() serves /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource. The caller is rc.identity_as::<McpPrincipal>(). Any authenticate hook may fail with an McpAuthError (status + challenge); other errors stay a plain 401.

use toolnexus::mcp_handler::{load_mcp_skills, McpHandlerConfig, McpServerAuth};

let auth = McpServerAuth { issuer: "https://login.example".into(),
    scopes: [("*".into(), vec!["mcp".into()])].into(), ..Default::default() };
let handler = tk.mcp_handler(McpHandlerConfig {
    protocol_versions: vec!["2026-07-28".into(), "2025-06-18".into()],
    authenticate: Some(auth.authenticate()),
    list_skills: Some(Arc::new(|_| Box::pin(async {
        load_mcp_skills("skills").map_err(|e| e.to_string()) }))),
    ..Default::default()
});
let prm = auth.metadata(); // mount at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource[/mcp]

Bring your own authorization server: McpServerAuth verifies its tokens. The auto-approving dev authorization server the suite uses is test tooling (tests/common_dev_auth), not part of the library.

Media generation

Generate images, video and speech (plus transcription, voice cloning and talking-head video) from a JSON style instead of provider code. Async jobs are started and polled for you. The same verbs become agent tools (generate_image, generate_video, generate_speech, …), and whatever they produce lands in RunResult.files. examples/media-styles/a2e.json ships first and reads A2E_API_KEY at call time. Its result URLs expire in 3–30 days, so save what you keep. SPEC §7G; guide: https://muthuishere.github.io/toolnexus/media/.

use toolnexus::{ImageInput, MediaOptions, ToolkitOptions, VideoInput, create_media, create_toolkit, load_media_style};

let media = create_media(load_media_style("examples/media-styles/a2e.json")?, MediaOptions::default());
let img = media.image(ImageInput { prompt: "a red fox in fresh snow".into(),
    width: Some(1024), height: Some(768), ..Default::default() }).await?;
let vid = media.video(VideoInput { prompt: "the fox blinks".into(),
    image: Some(img.files[0].url.clone()), seconds: Some(5), ..Default::default() }).await?;

let tk = create_toolkit(ToolkitOptions { media: Some(media), ..Default::default() }).await?; // generate_image, …
let res = agent.run("Draw a fox, then animate it.", &tk).await?;
for f in &res.files { println!("{} {} {}", f.from, f.mime_type, f.url); }

MCP 2026-07-28 + OAuth

Every MCP server is probed with server/discover first (SPEC §2.2). A server that speaks 2026-07-28 is used through toolnexus's own client (no SDK): stdio or stateless HTTP, MRTR input_required rounds through §10 wait_for (or a resumable pending result without one), the skills extension (remote skills join the skill tool), and opt-in lazy tool search ("toolSearch": true ⇒ <server>_search_tools + <server>_call_tool). Anything else falls back to the frozen rmcp path, unchanged.

Remote servers get OAuth 2.1 (§2A): PRM → AS metadata → pre-registered clientId / clientIds or a Client ID Metadata Document (never DCR) → PKCE S256 + resource → token, refresh, step-up.

{"mcpServers": {"gh": {"url": "https://mcp.example.com/mcp",
  "auth": {"clientId": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID", "mode": "auto"}}}}

McpLoadOptions / ToolkitOptions take token_store (default: in memory) and open_url (default: the OS opener). "mode": "pause" (+ redirectUri) raises a §10 authorization request instead; answer it with Answer { ok: true, data: {"callbackUrl": "<redirected URL>"} }.

Gaps: on the frozen fallback the token is attached as a static Authorization header at connect (rmcp takes headers only then), so a fallback server's token is not refreshed mid-session. The 2026 HTTP path does not need the mcp-http feature (it uses reqwest, always present); only the remote fallback does. resource_tools() covers fallback servers only.

Agents via ACP

toolnexus ships no per-agent client (SPEC §8C, ADR 0041). Three vendor-neutral pieces compose into one: toolkit.as_mcp_server(None) serves your tools on 127.0.0.1:<ephemeral>/mcp behind a fresh bearer token ({url, token}, close()); AcpClient::load(AcpOptions) spawns any ACP agent, passing mcp_servers (raw JSON, verbatim), session_meta, client_caps_meta and model straight through; and acp_generate / acp_generate_stream plug it into create_in_process_client, so stream yields text deltas as they arrive plus thought / tool_call / tool_result events via: "acp".

let srv = tk.as_mcp_server(None).await?;
let mut o = AcpOptions::new("my-acp-agent");
o.mcp_servers = vec![json!({"type": "http", "name": "toolnexus", "url": srv.url,
    "headers": [{"name": "Authorization", "value": format!("Bearer {}", srv.token)}]})];
let acp = Arc::new(AcpClient::load(o).await?);
let client = create_in_process_client(InProcessOptions {
    generate_stream: Some(acp_generate_stream(acp.clone())), ..Default::default() });

Cargo features

For a lean build, use toolnexus = { version = "0.25", default-features = false }.

More examples

The examples/ directory has runnable programs. Run them with cargo run --example <name> from a clone:

• basic: load MCP servers and skills, print the tools and their OpenAI schema.
• agent: a real model using skills, the built-in tools and a native tool.
• streaming: stream text and tool calls.
• pending: pause for a human answer, then resume.
• acp: use a local coding agent as the model.
• agents: a coordinator fanning out to sub-agents.
• prompt_cache: prompt caching and tool tiers.
• mcp_handler: the embeddable MCP server mounted on your own hyper server.

Status

The Rust crate passes the same conformance suite as the other seven languages and covers all of their options. Known gaps: there is no Gemini client style yet (Gemini schemas are supported), and the Windows code paths compile but have not been tested on Windows.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.