Cold start

This page explains how an agent with no Harborview-specific instructions finds the first useful action.

Cold start is the path from a plain MCP connection to the server's Pilotage manifest and core guide.

A protocol is discoverable only if a client new to the server can find its entry point without guessing tool names or relying on training data. Pilotage therefore guarantees one fixed tool: pilotage_manifest: the manifest is layer #1 of the loop, the welcome card read at the handshake. On older handshake-based MCP revisions, extension capability negotiation may also declare support. If an intermediary drops the additive capability field, the manifest tool still works.

Harborview reinforces this with exact initialize instructions:

Harborview is a simulated smart building operable through the Pilotage extension. Call pilotage_manifest first, read the core guide, then follow the loop: catalog → draft → validate_flow → run_flow → trace_run.

The manifest then identifies:

• the Language: buildingflow/1;
• the guide access tool;
• the catalog access tool;
• the names of the validate and execute tools, and, where stored traces can be fetched, the trace tool;
• the supported optional features;
• the trace ceiling and retention boundary.

The Model does not need to know that Harborview exists in advance. After discovery it reads quickstart, the 2,653-byte core guide. That guide defines the full document skeleton, all four step kinds, expression paths, the scope rule, and the loop: manifest → guides → catalog → validate + plan → execute → trace.

From there the agent orchestrates from the center: authoring, validating, executing, and reading the trace that rides the execute response, or fetching a stored trace later by run_id through the trace door.

Cold-start signposts are helpful, but the fixed manifest tool is the contract. Similar-looking tool names do not imply Pilotage when neither the negotiated capability nor a valid manifest is present.

Formal rules: Part III §1.2, Negotiation, Part III §3, Discovery, and Part IV §9, Authoring guides.

Next: Discovery and the manifest · Guides