Portable plugin MCP tools keep their names instead of a hash (64-char provider cap)

[alt-glitch]

The model can read a portable plugin's tool names again: a portable MCP server is named exactly what its mcp.json calls it, the same rule as a config.yaml server.

What the model saw

Every tool of a portable (Agent Plugins v1) package registered under a name like this:

mcp__agent_plugin_hermes_nvidia_72eb26b1__nvidia_app__nvapp_client_get_driver_status   84 chars

Providers reject function names over 64 characters and fail the whole request, so the registry clamps long names
to 55 characters plus a hash. The clamp cut off the part that says what the tool does:

mcp__agent_plugin_hermes_nvidia_72eb26b1__nvidia_app__n_3fa9c2d1

Seen live on the x64 desktop with the NVIDIA plugin: 12 tools, every one a hash, agent.log full of
exceeds the 64-char provider limit; shortened to a deterministic hash-suffixed name.

Where the 43 extra characters came from

The loader named a portable plugin's MCP server after the plugin's skill namespace,
agent-plugin-<slug>-<sha8> (plugins_manifest.py::_portable_skill_namespace). That namespace exists for plugin-data
directories and skill names: it must be unique without any coordination between plugin authors, and it is written to
disk, so it carries a digest. Neither reason applies to the MCP server name. It only has to be unique among the
portable servers loaded in one process, and the loader already detects and refuses a duplicate.

Change

flowchart LR
  subgraph before
    K1[plugin key] --> N1["agent-plugin-<slug>-<sha8>"] --> S1["<ns>__<server>"] --> T1["mcp__…__n_3fa9c2d1 (clamped)"]
  end
  subgraph after
    M2["mcp.json server name"] --> S2["<server>"] --> T2["mcp__nvidia_app__nvapp_client_get_driver_status"]
  end

Loading

	before	after
server nvidia-app in a portable plugin	agent-plugin-hermes-nvidia-72eb26b1__nvidia-app	nvidia-app
server nvidia-app in the user's config.yaml	nvidia-app	nvidia-app (unchanged; same rule now)
wire tool name, nvapp_client_get_driver_status	84 chars → clamped, verb lost	47 chars, intact
skill names, plugin-data/ directory	agent-plugin-<slug>-<sha8>	unchanged
two sources naming a server the same	impossible (digest)	refused at load: config.yaml wins, then first-loaded plugin; warning names both

One function, plugins_manifest.py::portable_mcp_server_name, used by the loader and by the desktop card's server rows
(tui_gateway/methods_tools.py::_plugin_server_rows, which had recomputed the f-string on its own).

Applies to every portable plugin (~18 catalog entries describe themselves as portable), all of which were being
clamped. No migration: nothing persisted refers to a portable server's name. Plugin servers are merged at runtime, never
written to config.yaml; transcripts keep old names as history only.

Verification

• tests/hermes_cli/test_plugins.py::test_enabled_portable_plugin_registers_components now pins the relationship:
  server name equals the mcp.json name, and a long vendor tool name reaches the wire without a hash suffix.
  Red on main, green here.
• New test_two_portable_plugins_with_the_same_server_name_do_not_both_load: the clash the digest used to hide.
  Two enabled packages naming a server shared, one served, one skipped. Red on main.
• Ran: tests/hermes_cli/test_plugins.py 97 pass, test_agent_plugins.py 43, tests/tools/test_mcp_liveness*.py,
  tests/tui_gateway/test_plugins_manage_install.py. test_plugin_validate.py has one failure that is identical on
  main (unrelated, test_portable_validation_fails_orphan_and_reports_availability).
• Live spike, isolated HERMES_HOME, real model turn: a portable plugin with server acme-tools and tool
  acme_client_get_driver_status_report. On main it registers as
  mcp__agent_plugin_acme_tools_88e7456f__acme_tools__acme_153862de; on this branch as
  mcp__acme_tools__acme_client_get_driver_status_report. agent.log: MCP server 'acme-tools' (stdio): registered 1 tool(s): mcp__acme_tools__acme_client_get_driver_status_report; the model found it with tool_search, called it, and
  reported that exact name.
• Not re-run on the Windows desktop against this branch; the NVIDIA run above is the "before".

Follow-ups (not here)

• The vendor's own tool names repeat the product (nvapp_client_…); that is the plugin author's naming.
• Plugin-data and skill namespaces keep the digest; changing them would need an on-disk migration.

[github-actions]

૮ >ﻌ< ა ci review

_{ran on b7d2106 — fix(plugins): a portable MCP server is named what its mcp.js}

debug info

CI timings

CI timings · View report · View job

Wall time 6m1s vs 5m44s (+4.9%). 8 job(s) slower, 4 faster, 1 unchanged.

• Python tests / Run tests: +51.0s
• Python lints / Windows footguns (blocking): +23.0s
• Docs Site / docs-site-checks: +6.0s
• OS-specific tests / macOS-only tests: +4.0s
• OS-specific tests / Windows-only tests: +3.0s