genai-toolbox/DEVELOPER.md

DEVELOPER.md

This document provides instructions for setting up your development environment and contributing to the Toolbox project.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

1. Databases: Set up the necessary databases for your development environment.

2. Go: Install the latest version of Go.

3. Dependencies: Download and manage project dependencies:

   go get
   go mod tidy
   

Developing Toolbox

Running from Local Source

1. Configuration: Create a tools.yaml file to configure your sources and tools. See the Configuration section in the README for details.

2. CLI Flags: List available command-line flags for the Toolbox server:

   go run . --help
   

3. Running the Server: Start the Toolbox server with optional flags. The server listens on port 5000 by default.

   go run .
   

4. Testing the Endpoint: Verify the server is running by sending a request to the endpoint:

   curl http://127.0.0.1:5000
   

Tool Naming Conventions

This section details the purpose and conventions for MCP Toolbox's tools naming properties, tool name and tool kind.

cancel_hotel: <- tool name
    kind: postgres-sql  <- tool kind
    source: my_pg_source

Tool Name

Tool name is the identifier used by a Large Language Model (LLM) to invoke a specific tool.

• Custom tools: The user can define any name they want. The below guidelines do not apply.
• Pre-built tools: The tool name is predefined and cannot be changed. It should follow the guidelines.

The following guidelines apply to tool names:

• Should use underscores over hyphens (e.g., list_collections instead of list-collections).
• Should not have the product name in the name (e.g., list_collections instead of firestore_list_collections).
• Superficial changes are NOT considered as breaking (e.g., changing tool name).
• Non-superficial changes MAY be considered breaking (e.g. adding new parameters to a function) until they can be validated through extensive testing to ensure they do not negatively impact agent's performances.

Tool Kind

Tool kind serves as a category or type that a user can assign to a tool.

The following guidelines apply to tool kinds:

• Should user hyphens over underscores (e.g. firestore-list-collections or firestore_list_colelctions).
• Should use product name in name (e.g. firestore-list-collections over list-collections).
• Changes to tool kind are breaking changes and should be avoided.

Testing

Infrastructure

Toolbox uses both GitHub Actions and Cloud Build to run test workflows. Cloud Build is used when Google credentials are required. Cloud Build uses test project "toolbox-testing-438616".

Linting

Run the lint check to ensure code quality:

golangci-lint run --fix

Unit Tests

Execute unit tests locally:

go test -race -v ./cmd/... ./internal/...

Integration Tests

Running Locally

1. Environment Variables: Set the required environment variables. Refer to the Cloud Build testing configuration for a complete list of variables for each source.

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_EMAIL: Use your own GCP email.
   • CLIENT_ID: Use the Google Cloud SDK application Client ID. Contact Toolbox maintainers if you don't have it.

2. Running Tests: Run the integration test for your target source. Specify the required Go build tags at the top of each integration test file.

   go test -race -v ./tests/<YOUR_TEST_DIR>
   

   For example, to run the AlloyDB integration test:

   go test -race -v ./tests/alloydbpg
   

3. Timeout: The integration test should have a timeout on the server. Look for code like this:

   ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), time.Minute)
   defer cancel()
   
   cmd, cleanup, err := tests.StartCmd(ctx, toolsFile, args...)
   if err != nil {
     t.Fatalf("command initialization returned an error: %s", err)
   }
   defer cleanup()
   

   Be sure to set the timeout to a reasonable value for your tests.

Running on Pull Requests

• Internal Contributors: Testing workflows should trigger automatically.
• External Contributors: Request Toolbox maintainers to trigger the testing workflows on your PR.
  • Maintainers can comment /gcbrun to execute the integration tests.
  • Maintainers can add the label tests:run to execute the unit tests.

Test Resources

The following databases have been added as test resources. To add a new database to test against, please contact the Toolbox maintainer team via an issue or PR. Refer to the Cloud Build testing configuration for a complete list of variables for each source.

• AlloyDB - setup in the test project
  • AI Natural Language (setup instructions) has been configured for alloydb-ai-nl tool tests
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Bigtable - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• BigQuery - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Cloud SQL Postgres - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Cloud SQL MySQL - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Cloud SQL SQL Server - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Couchbase - setup in the test project via the Marketplace
• DGraph - using the public dgraph interface https://play.dgraph.io for testing
• Looker
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user for conversational analytics
  • The Looker instance runs under google.com:looker-sandbox.
• Memorystore Redis - setup in the test project using a Memorystore for Redis standalone instance
  • Memorystore Redis Cluster, Memorystore Valkey standalone, and Memorystore Valkey Cluster instances all require PSC connections, which requires extra security setup to connect from Cloud Build. Memorystore Redis standalone is the only one allowing PSA connection.
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• Memorystore Valkey - setup in the test project using a Memorystore for Redis standalone instance
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• MySQL - setup in the test project using a Cloud SQL instance
• Neo4j - setup in the test project on a GCE VM
• Postgres - setup in the test project using an AlloyDB instance
• Spanner - setup in the test project
  • The Cloud Build service account is a user
• SQL Server - setup in the test project using a Cloud SQL instance
• SQLite - setup in the integration test, where we create a temporary database file

Link Checking and Fixing with Lychee

We use lychee for repository link checks.

• To run the checker locally, see the command-line usage guide.

Fixing Broken Links

1. Update the Link: Correct the broken URL or update the content where it is used.

2. Ignore the Link: If you can't fix the link (e.g., due to external rate-limits or if it's a local-only URL), tell Lychee to ignore it.

   • List regular expressions or direct links in the .lycheeignore file, one entry per line.
   • Always add a comment explaining why the link is being skipped to prevent link rot. Example .lycheeignore:

     # These are email addresses, not standard web URLs, and usually cause check failures.
     ^mailto:.*
     

Note

To avoid build failures in GitHub Actions, follow the linking pattern demonstrated here:
Avoid: (Works in Hugo, breaks Link Checker): [Read more](docs/setup) or [Read more](docs/setup/)
Reason: The link checker cannot find a file named "setup" or a directory with that name containing an index.
Preferred: [Read more](docs/setup.md)
Reason: The GitHub Action finds the physical file. Hugo then uses its internal logic (or render hooks) to resolve this to the correct /docs/setup/ web URL.

Other GitHub Checks

• License header check (.github/header-checker-lint.yml) - Ensures files have the appropriate license
• CLA/google - Ensures the developer has signed the CLA: https://cla.developers.google.com/
• conventionalcommits.org - Ensures the commit messages are in the correct format. This repository uses tool Release Please to create GitHub releases. It does so by parsing your git history, looking for Conventional Commit messages, and creating release PRs. Learn more by reading How should I write my commits?

Developing Documentation

Running a Local Hugo Server

Follow these steps to preview documentation changes locally using a Hugo server:

1. Install Hugo: Ensure you have Hugo extended edition version 0.146.0 or later installed.

2. Navigate to the Hugo Directory:

   cd .hugo
   

3. Install Dependencies:

   npm ci
   

4. Start the Server:

   hugo server
   

Previewing Documentation on Pull Requests

Document Versioning Setup

There are 3 GHA workflows we use to achieve document versioning:

1. Deploy In-development docs: This workflow is run on every commit merged into the main branch. It deploys the built site to the /dev/ subdirectory for the in-development documentation.

2. Deploy Versioned Docs: When a new GitHub Release is published, it performs two deployments based on the new release tag. One to the new version subdirectory and one to the root directory of the versioned-gh-pages branch.

   Note: Before the release PR from release-please is merged, add the newest version into the hugo.toml file.

3. Deploy Previous Version Docs: This is a manual workflow, started from the GitHub Actions UI. To rebuild and redeploy documentation for an already released version that were released before this new system was in place. This workflow can be started on the UI by providing the git version tag which you want to create the documentation for. The specific versioned subdirectory and the root docs are updated on the versioned-gh-pages branch.

Contributors

Request a repo owner to run the preview deployment workflow on your PR. A preview link will be automatically added as a comment to your PR.

Maintainers

1. Inspect Changes: Review the proposed changes in the PR to ensure they are safe and do not contain malicious code. Pay close attention to changes in the .github/workflows/ directory.
2. Deploy Preview: Apply the docs: deploy-preview label to the PR to deploy a documentation preview.

Building Toolbox

Building the Binary

1. Build Command: Compile the Toolbox binary:

   go build -o toolbox
   

2. Running the Binary: Execute the compiled binary with optional flags. The server listens on port 5000 by default:

   ./toolbox
   

3. Testing the Endpoint: Verify the server is running by sending a request to the endpoint:

   curl http://127.0.0.1:5000
   

Building Container Images

1. Build Command: Build the Toolbox container image:

   docker build -t toolbox:dev .
   

2. View Image: List available Docker images to confirm the build:

   docker images
   

3. Run Container: Run the Toolbox container image using Docker:

   docker run -d toolbox:dev
   

Developing Toolbox SDKs

Refer to the SDK developer guide for instructions on developing Toolbox SDKs.

Maintainer Information

Team

Team @googleapis/senseai-eco has been set as CODEOWNERS. The GitHub TeamSync tool is used to create this team from MDB Group, senseai-eco. Additionally, database-specific GitHub teams (e.g., @googleapis/toolbox-alloydb) have been created from MDB groups to manage code ownership and review for individual database products.

Team @googleapis/toolbox-contributors has write access to this repo. They can create branches and approve test runs. But they do not have the ability to approve PRs for main. TeamSync is used to create this team from the MDB Group toolbox-contributors. Googlers who are developing for MCP-Toolbox but aren't part of the core team should join this group.

Releasing

Toolbox has two types of releases: versioned and continuous. It uses Google Cloud project, database-toolbox.

• Versioned Release: Official, supported distributions tagged as latest. The release process is defined in versioned.release.cloudbuild.yaml.
• Continuous Release: Used for early testing of features between official releases and for end-to-end testing. The release process is defined in continuous.release.cloudbuild.yaml.
• GitHub Release: .github/release-please.yml automatically creates GitHub Releases and release PRs.

How-to Release a new Version

1. [Optional] If you want to override the version number, send a PR to trigger release-please. You can generate a commit with the following line: git commit -m "chore: release 0.1.0" -m "Release-As: 0.1.0" --allow-empty
2. [Optional] If you want to edit the changelog, send commits to the release PR
3. Approve and merge the PR with the title “chore(main): release x.x.x”
4. The trigger should automatically run when a new tag is pushed. You can view triggered builds here to check the status
5. Update the Github release notes to include the following table:

   1. Run the following command (from the root directory):

      export VERSION="v0.0.0"
      .ci/generate_release_table.sh
      

   2. Copy the table output

   3. In the GitHub UI, navigate to Releases and click the edit button.

   4. Paste the table at the bottom of release note and click Update release.

6. Post release in internal chat and on Discord.

Supported Binaries

The following operating systems and architectures are supported for binary releases:

• linux/amd64
• darwin/arm64
• darwin/amd64
• windows/amd64

Supported Container Images

The following base container images are supported for container image releases:

• distroless

Automated Tests

Integration and unit tests are automatically triggered via Cloud Build on each pull request. Integration tests run on merge and nightly.

Failure notifications

On-merge and nightly tests that fail have notification setup via Cloud Build Failure Reporter GitHub Actions Workflow.

Trigger Setup

Configure a Cloud Build trigger using the UI or gcloud with the following settings:

• Event: Pull request
• Region: global (for default worker pools)
• Source:
  • Generation: 1st gen
  • Repo: googleapis/genai-toolbox (GitHub App)
  • Base branch: ^main$
• Comment control: Required except for owners and collaborators
• Filters: Add directory filter
• Config: Cloud Build configuration file
  • Location: Repository (add path to file)
• Service account: Set for demo service to enable ID token creation for authenticated services

Triggering Tests

Trigger pull request tests for external contributors by:

• Cloud Build tests: Comment /gcbrun
• Unit tests: Add the tests:run label

Repo Setup & Automation

• .github/blunderbuss.yml - Auto-assign issues and PRs from GitHub teams. Use a product label to assign to a product-specific team member.
• .github/renovate.json5 - Tooling for dependency updates. Dependabot is built into the GitHub repo for GitHub security warnings
• go/github-issue-mirror - GitHub issues are automatically mirrored into buganizer
• (Suspended) .github/sync-repo-settings.yaml - configure repo settings
• .github/release-please.yml - Creates GitHub releases
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE - templates for GitHub issues