Files
lightcraft/docs/control-protocol.md
T
Brandon ThomasandClaude Opus 5.5 50307e59db M0.9: MCP server + lightcraft-cli
crates/mcp (lightcraft-mcp, L5): hand-written MCP over stdio (JSON-RPC 2.0,
protocol 2025-06-18 with 2025-03-26/2024-11-05 negotiation): initialize,
ping, tools/list, tools/call, resources/list/read. Two backends behind one
trait: Headless (in-process engine Session; answers engine.execute,
engine.commands, ui.render, app.export) and Remote (the desktop app's
loopback JSON-lines control channel; lazy connect + reconnect).

Tools: helpers (list_commands, run_command, import, query_photos,
select_photos, list_controls, get/set_develop, apply_preset, crop,
render_photo -> image content, export), UI tools when connected
(screenshot -> image content, inspect_ui, set_ui, list_widgets, click,
press_key, type_text, pointer_gesture), plus one cmd_<id> tool generated
per command in the registry (--compact omits them).

apps/lightcraft-cli: `mcp [--connect [ADDR]] [--demo] [--compact] [FILES]`,
`render <in> -o <out> [--set control=value]... [--settings] [--preset]
[--size] [--quality]`, `commands`, `controls`.

Acceptance e2e: crates/mcp/tests/e2e.rs sets exposure over MCP and renders
(headless and through the TCP transport); apps/lightcraft-cli/tests/cli.rs
does the same through the real binary's stdio. Docs: docs/mcp.md,
docs/control-protocol.md. Also rustfmt of one line in pipeline/finish.rs
(main was not fmt-clean).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-30 23:37:08 -04:00

2.1 KiB

Control protocol

lightcraft --control 7980 (or LIGHTCRAFT_CONTROL_PORT=7980) starts a JSON-lines server on 127.0.0.1:7980 (loopback only). One request per line, one reply per line, in order:

→ {"id": 1, "method": "engine.execute", "params": {"command": "photo.rate", "params": {"rating": 4}}}
← {"id": 1, "ok": true, "result": null}
← {"id": 2, "ok": false, "error": "unknown command `nope`"}

Requests are answered on the UI thread between frames (timeout 60 s). The MCP server's connect mode (mcp.md) is a thin layer over this channel. Implementation: crates/ui-egui/src/control.rs (methods) and apps/lightcraft/src/control_server.rs (transport).

Methods

Method Params Result
engine.execute (alias ui.menu.invoke) {command, params?} Run any engine or UI command (see engine.commands)
engine.commands — Engine + UI commands: id, label, menu, shortcut, params doc, enabled
ui.menu.list — Menu entries
ui.inspect — UI state, window, canvas/image rects, active photo, selection, perf, status
ui.widgets {filter?} On-screen widgets {id, rect: [x, y, w, h]} (screen points)
ui.clickWidget / ui.dragWidget {id, count?, fx?, fy?} / {id, toX?, toY?, dx?, dy?, steps?} Real egui input on a widget
ui.move / ui.click / ui.drag {x, y, count?, button?} / {x, y, toX, toY, steps?} Raw pointer input, screen points
ui.pointer {events: [{kind: down|drag|up, x, y}], alt?, shift?, cmd?} Gesture in normalized image coordinates (Detail view)
ui.key {key, cmd?, shift?, alt?, ctrl?} Key press
ui.text {text} Text input
ui.scroll {dx, dy} Mouse wheel
ui.set partial UI state, e.g. {"view": "detail"} Resulting UI state
ui.dialog.confirm / ui.dialog.cancel — Close the open dialog
ui.resize {width, height} Resize the window
ui.screenshot {path?} {path, width, height} once the frame (with finished renders) is captured
ui.render {id?, size?, path?} Render a photo (PNG to path), {width, height}
app.quit — Close the app