sysprobe-mcp

Standalone, token-efficient MCP server for Linux system diagnostics and desktop/hardware control. Returns compact JSON with hard size limits so a single tool call can never flood the model context.

It is distro-agnostic. For Arch/CachyOS package management (pacman/AUR) use the companion cachyos-mcp, which embeds this server's tools.

Tool groups

Diagnostics (read-only, always available)

• Filesystem/config: list_directory_tree, read_config_snippet, grep_file, check_command_exists
• Processes/resources: get_process_top, get_process_info, inspect_process_io, find_processes
• Sensors/power: get_hardware_sensors, get_battery_health
• System/hardware: get_system_info, get_cpu_info, get_disk_usage, get_block_devices, list_usb_devices, list_pci_devices, get_gpu_info
• systemd/logs: get_service_status, list_services, list_failed_services, query_journalctl, get_boot_performance
• Debugging: list_coredumps, diagnose_crash, check_kernel_ring_buffer
• D-Bus: list_dbus_services, get_dbus_property
• Desktop status: get_brightness, get_power_profile, get_cpu_governor, get_volume, get_now_playing, bluetooth_status, bluetooth_devices, bluetooth_scan, get_kde_theme, list_color_schemes, list_desktop_apps

Control (mutating — needs SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_ACTIONS=1)

• Bluetooth: bluetooth_power, bluetooth_connect, bluetooth_disconnect, bluetooth_pair
• Display/power: set_brightness, set_power_profile, set_cpu_governor
• Audio/media: set_volume, set_mute, media_control
• Apps: launch_app, open_path
• KDE: set_color_scheme, set_global_theme, kde_notify, kwin_reconfigure
• Services/processes: control_service, kill_process
• Session: lock_session, suspend_system

Power (double-gated — also needs SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_POWER=1)

• power_action (reboot / poweroff)

Safety model

Read-only by default. Mutating tools return an explanatory error unless SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_ACTIONS=1 is set in the server environment. Genuinely destructive actions (reboot/poweroff) need a second, independent flag (SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_POWER=1) so they stay off even when ordinary actions are on.

Run

uv run sysprobe-mcp                       # read-only
SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_ACTIONS=1 uv run sysprobe-mcp   # + control tools

Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add sysprobe -s user \
  -e SYSCONTROL_ALLOW_ACTIONS=1 \
  -- uv --directory "/home/tom/Projekte/SE Projects/sysprobe-mcp" run sysprobe-mcp

Optional system tools

Richer output when these are installed: lm_sensors, upower, lsblk, usbutils, pciutils, bluez-utils (bluetoothctl), powerprofilesctl, cpupower, wireplumber/pulseaudio (wpctl/pactl), playerctl, qdbus6, kreadconfig6 + plasma-apply-* (KDE), brightnessctl, nvidia-utils.