rmcp-presence

Auditable, permissioned environmental awareness for agentic AI systems.

Give your AI eyes and hands without giving it a shell.

cargo install rmcp-presence

Why This Exists

You could give your AI bash access. But should you?

rmcp-presence provides 170 structured tools that let AI systems perceive and act on their environment without arbitrary command execution.

• Auditable - every action is a discrete tool call with typed parameters
• Permissioned - runtime config disables any tool without recompiling
• Cross-platform - sensors and actuators work on Linux/macOS/Windows
• Safe - no shell injection, no rm -rf, no surprises
• Structured - JSON schemas tell the AI exactly what's possible

What Can It Do?

Perceive (Sensors)

• System stats, CPU, memory, disk, processes, temps
• Displays, USB devices, cameras, microphones, Bluetooth
• Network status, public IP, interfaces
• Git repository status
• Weather and forecasts
• Battery, idle time

Act (Actuators)

• Clipboard read/write
• Volume control, media playback
• Screenshots, camera capture, audio recording
• File management (trash, open)
• Reminders and notifications
• Print files and documents
• Local LLM management (Ollama)

Control (Linux)

• Window management (i3)
• Mouse and keyboard automation (xdotool)
• Service management (systemd)
• Power management (suspend, hibernate, lock)
• Brightness, Bluetooth, per-app audio

Composite Tools

8 composites provide quick environmental snapshots in a single call:

One tool call instead of many. Less context, faster orientation.

Architecture

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|                     rmcp-presence                         |
|              (single binary, ~13MB)                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Layer 3: Linux        |  79 tools - Linux only          |
|  (conditional)         |  i3, xdotool, mpris, systemd,   |
|                        |  brightness, bluer, dbus,       |
|                        |  logind, pulseaudio             |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Layer 2: Actuators    |  48 tools - Cross-platform      |
|  (all platforms)       |  clipboard, audio, trash, open, |
|                        |  screenshot, camera, mic,       |
|                        |  ollama, breakrs, printers      |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Layer 1: Sensors      |  35 tools - Cross-platform      |
|  (all platforms)       |  sysinfo, display, idle, git,   |
|                        |  network, usb, battery, weather |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Composites            |  8 tools - Quick orientation    |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

Tool Counts

Usage

With Claude Code

Add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "presence": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "rmcp-presence",
      "args": [],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Example Calls

mcp__presence__get_context         - "Where am I? What's the system state?"
mcp__presence__get_audio_status    - "What's playing? What's the volume?"
mcp__presence__capture_monitor     - "Let me see the screen"
mcp__presence__capture_camera      - "Let me see through the webcam"
mcp__presence__set_volume 50       - "Set volume to 50%"
mcp__presence__media_play_pause    - "Pause the music"
mcp__presence__list_printers       - "What printers are available?"
mcp__presence__print_file          - "Print this document"
mcp__presence__suspend             - "Put the system to sleep"

Runtime Configuration

Disable tools without recompiling. Perfect for restricting capabilities per-deployment.

rmcp-presence config

Creates/opens ~/.config/rmcp-presence/tools.toml:

disabled = [
    # Uncomment to disable a tool
    # "suspend",           # Don't let AI sleep the system
    # "poweroff",          # Definitely don't let AI shut down
    # "print_file",        # No unsupervised printing
    # "trash_file",        # No file deletion

    # Pre-disabled: covered by composites
    "get_idle_time",       # use get_context instead
    "get_display_info",    # use get_peripherals instead
    "list_models",         # use get_ollama_status instead
]

Lean defaults: 26 tools covered by composites are pre-disabled to reduce context overhead.

Feature Flags

[features]
default = ["sensors", "actuators", "linux"]
sensors = [...]     # Layer 1: read-only environmental awareness
actuators = [...]   # Layer 2: cross-platform actions
linux = [...]       # Layer 3: Linux-specific capabilities
full = ["sensors", "actuators", "linux"]

Build for your platform:

# Full Linux experience (default)
cargo build --release

# Cross-platform only (no Linux-specific tools)
cargo build --release --no-default-features --features sensors,actuators

Security Model

rmcp-presence is designed for supervised AI deployments:

1. No shell access - AI cannot execute arbitrary commands
2. Typed parameters - Every tool has a JSON schema defining valid inputs
3. Runtime restrictions - Disable dangerous tools via config
4. Audit trail - MCP logs every tool invocation
5. No persistence - Tools are stateless; AI can't install backdoors

This is not a replacement for proper sandboxing. It's a safer alternative to giving AI bash.

Who Is This For?

• AI developers building agents that need environmental awareness
• MCP users who want comprehensive system access via one server
• Anyone who wants to give AI capabilities without shell access

The Vision

"Your AI shouldn't be trapped in a tab - but it shouldn't have root either."

AI assistants are evolving from chatbots to agents. They need to perceive and act on their environment. But giving them a shell is dangerous.

rmcp-presence is the middle ground: presence without privilege.

License

MIT

Built with love by sqrew and Claude. 170 tools. One binary. Zero shell access. Pour toujours. 💙