Zero-overhead observability for Vurb.ts servers. Connects via Shadow Socket (IPC) — no stdio interference, no port conflicts, no agent disruption.

Why Inspector?

MCP servers communicate over stdio, which means traditional debugging tools (console.log, debuggers) are off-limits. The Inspector solves this by opening an out-of-band Shadow Socket (Named Pipe on Windows / Unix Domain Socket on Linux/macOS) that streams real-time telemetry without touching stdio.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  MCP Client (Claude, Cursor, etc.)         │
│         ↕ stdio (MCP protocol)             │
│  Vurb.ts Server                         │
│         ↕ Shadow Socket (IPC)              │
│  Inspector TUI / stderr logger              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Quick Start

# Launch interactive TUI (auto-discovers running server)
vurb inspect

# Short alias
vurb insp

# Built-in simulator (no server needed — great for demos)
vurb insp --demo

# Headless stderr output (ECS / K8s / CI)
vurb insp --out stderr

# Connect to a specific server PID
vurb insp --pid 12345

Dashboard Panels

Topology

Live tool registry showing every registered tool and action with:

| Column | Description | |--------|-------------| | Status | ✓ ok, ✗ error, ⋯ pending | | Tool | group.action qualified name | | Type | R/O read-only, W write, 🔒 sandboxed, ◆FSM state-gated | | Latency | Last execution time in ms | | Calls | Total invocation count | | Middleware | Chain length per action |

Tabs: Tools · Prompts · Resources

Traffic Log

Real-time color-coded event stream — every pipeline stage appears as it happens:

19:32:01  ROUTE   billing.createInvoice
19:32:01  ZOD     ✓ 2ms
19:32:01  MW      chain(2)
19:32:01  EXEC    ✓ 45ms
19:32:01  SLICE   4.2KB → 1.1KB (73.8% saved)
19:32:01  DLP     ✖ $.user.email → [REDACTED]

X-Ray Inspector

Select any tool in the list to see deep inspection in the right panel:

• Error Autopsy — Full exception with pipeline stage (VALIDATE, MIDDLEWARE, EXECUTE), self-healing recovery hints
• Last Input — Zod-validated arguments (pretty-printed JSON)
• Select Reflection — Which fields the AI chose via _select (e.g. "3 of 12 fields")
• Late Guillotine — Token economy: raw DB bytes vs. wire bytes with savings percentage bar
• Cognitive Guardrails — Array truncation from agentLimit() (e.g. "500 → 50 items")
• DLP Redactions — Masked PII paths ($.user.email → [REDACTED])
• Cognitive Rules — System rules injected by the Presenter
• Call History — Rolling log with latency, status, and summary per call

Header Bar

Server name · PID · Heap usage · Uptime · Requests/second

Telemetry Events

The Inspector processes all events emitted by the Vurb.ts pipeline:

| Event | Source | Description | |-------|--------|-------------| | topology | startServer() | Tool registry snapshot (initial + hot-reload) | | heartbeat | startServer() | PID, heap, uptime (every 5s) | | route | Pipeline | Action routing resolution | | validate | Pipeline | Zod validation result + duration | | middleware | Pipeline | Middleware chain length | | execute | Pipeline | Handler execution result + duration | | error | Pipeline | Exception with recovery hints | | presenter.slice | Presenter | Raw bytes vs. wire bytes (token savings) | | presenter.rules | Presenter | Injected system rules | | dlp.redact | DLP | PII redaction paths | | fsm.transition | FSM Gate | State machine transition (from → to) | | sandbox.exec | Sandbox | Sandboxed execution metrics | | governance | Governance | Policy enforcement events |

Output Modes

Interactive TUI (default)

Full-screen terminal dashboard with keyboard navigation.

Vurb.ts inspect
Vurb.ts insp --demo

Keyboard shortcuts:

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | ↑ ↓ / j k | Navigate tool list | | q / Ctrl+C | Exit |

Headless (stderr)

Structured log output for non-TTY environments. Ideal for containers, CI/CD, and log aggregation.

# Color-coded stderr
Vurb.ts insp --out stderr

# NDJSON format (set env var)
Vurb.ts_LOG_FORMAT=json Vurb.ts insp --out stderr

# Pipe to file
Vurb.ts insp --out stderr | tee telemetry.log

Respects NO_COLOR environment variable.

Programmatic API

import {
    commandTop,
    streamToStderr,
    startSimulator,
} from '@vurb/inspector';

// Launch the interactive TUI
await commandTop({ pid: 12345 });

// Launch the headless stderr logger
await streamToStderr({ pid: 12345 });

// Start the built-in simulator (returns a TelemetryBus)
const bus = await startSimulator({ rps: 5 });
// ... use bus.path to connect TUI or logger
await bus.close();

Rendering Utilities

Low-level ANSI primitives exported for custom TUI implementations:

import {
    ansi,
    ScreenManager,
    box,
    hline,
    pad,
    truncate,
    progressBar,
    stringWidth,
    RingBuffer,
} from '@vurb/inspector';

Installation

npm install @vurb/inspector

Peer Dependency

Requires Vurb.ts ≥ 3.0.0 (provides TelemetryEvent types and TelemetryBus).

How It Works

1. Server side — startServer({ telemetry: true }) creates a Shadow Socket (Named Pipe / UDS) and streams TelemetryEvent objects as newline-delimited JSON.

2. Client side — The Inspector connects to the Shadow Socket, parses events, and updates the TUI state at 15 fps (throttled to prevent flicker).

3. Auto-discovery — When no --pid or --path is specified, the Inspector scans for the well-known IPC path pattern and auto-connects. If no server is found, it polls every 2 seconds. If the connection drops, it auto-reconnects.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18.0.0
• Interactive terminal (for TUI mode) — --out stderr for non-TTY environments
• Vurb.ts ≥ 3.0.0 (peer dependency)

License

Apache-2.0