Albu MCP Server

AlbumentationsX MCP

Model Context Protocol server for AlbumentationsX: discovering transforms, validating augmentation pipelines, rendering deterministic previews, and exporting reproducible pipeline specs.

Scope

This project is intentionally a thin MCP layer around existing AlbumentationsX primitives:

• albu-spec is the source of transform metadata, parameter constraints, targets, and docstrings.
• albumentationsx remains the execution engine for validation, serialization, and previews.
• the MCP server exposes resources, tools, and prompts with strict typed schemas and bounded local file access.

The server does not execute arbitrary Python, fetch remote images, overwrite datasets, or train models.

Public MCP tool, resource, prompt, and metadata changes follow the compatibility policy and are guarded by surface and output contract snapshots.

Install

Run the published MCP server without cloning:

uvx --from albumentationsx-mcp albumentationsx-mcp

For host-specific setup, bounded filesystem access, smoke checks, and troubleshooting, see the install guide. After connecting a host, read albumentationsx://examples/client-smoke to verify resource discovery, recipe recommendation, and pipeline validation before rendering local previews.

For local development:

uv sync --all-extras --dev

Run

uv run albumentationsx-mcp

Claude Desktop or another JSON-configured MCP host can launch a local checkout with stdio:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "albumentationsx": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "albumentationsx-mcp"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/albu-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Installed from PyPI:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "albumentationsx": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "albumentationsx-mcp", "albumentationsx-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

See examples/claude_desktop_pypi_config.json, examples/cursor_mcp_config.json, and examples/codex_mcp_config.toml for copyable host snippets.

Core Tools

• search_transforms: search transform metadata by query, targets, type, and bbox support.
• get_transform_schema: inspect a transform schema and constraints.
• validate_pipeline: validate a typed pipeline spec before running it.
• recommend_pipeline: create a conservative task preset for classification, detection, segmentation, or OCR.
• recommend_recipe: return a task-aware starter pipeline, quality profile, feedback tags, explanations, and next MCP tools.
• adjust_pipeline: apply structured preview feedback such as too_noisy or too_blurry.
• explain_pipeline: summarize likely effects, preview risks, and useful feedback tags.
• list_feedback_tags: list the structured feedback contract used by adjust_pipeline.
• list_quality_profiles: list task-aware quality profiles for balanced, classification, detection, segmentation, and OCR review.
• render_preview: create deterministic local preview artifacts inside an allowed output root.
• render_preview_batch: create deterministic multi-image preview contact sheets using the same request schema.
• compare_preview_runs: compare two preview manifests before choosing feedback tags or exporting a pipeline.
• summarize_tuning_session: summarize quality findings, feedback tags, score, risk, and export readiness.
• rank_preview_candidates: rank several candidate preview runs against one baseline.
• score_dataset_preview_candidates: score a candidate set across dataset-level metrics, findings, and ranking.
• record_preview_feedback: persist user feedback for one concrete preview example and variant.
• list_preview_feedback: list concrete preview feedback and aggregate tags for the next adjustment.
• record_tuning_decision: persist a local accepted or rejected tuning decision.
• list_tuning_decisions: list local tuning decisions newest-first or score-ranked.
• export_tuning_report: export persisted tuning decisions as Markdown or JSON.
• export_preview_report: export Markdown or HTML reports with contact sheets, ranking, metrics, decisions, and concrete feedback.
• list_preview_runs: list recent preview manifests recorded under the artifact root.
• get_preview_manifest: read one recorded preview manifest by run id.
• delete_preview_run: delete one preview run and its artifacts.
• cleanup_preview_runs: prune older preview runs beyond a retention count.
• export_pipeline: export a pipeline as Python, JSON, or YAML.

render_preview and render_preview_batch support optional bboxes, keypoints, and mask paths for annotation overlay previews. Preview manifests include an agent-legible summary block with input counts, seeds, transform names, artifact counts, contact sheets, and warnings.

What Changed In 0.2

• PyPI and MCP Registry publishing are automated with release version guardrails and post-release smoke checks.
• render_preview_batch produces batch previews and contact sheets for multi-image review.
• compare_preview_runs summarizes baseline and candidate manifests to compare preview runs before choosing feedback tags.
• Preview manifests include reproducibility summaries for seeds, transforms, artifact counts, and contact sheets.
• agent workflow resources and prompts guide preview tuning, annotation review, feedback adjustment, and final export.

What Changed In 0.3

• adjust_pipeline accepts optional feedback severity suffixes such as too_noisy:low, too_noisy:medium, and too_noisy:high.
• compare_preview_runs returns suggested_feedback_tags for candidate transforms that deserve visual review.
• Suggested tags are review candidates only; the user still chooses feedback after inspecting contact sheets.

What Changed In 0.4

• compare_preview_runs includes local quality_summary metrics for preview image artifacts.
• summarize_tuning_session explains baseline-to-candidate feedback, quality deltas, and export readiness.
• task workflow profiles and docs/RECIPES.md guide classification, detection, segmentation, and OCR MCP host sessions.

What Changed In 0.5

• quality_summary now includes saturation, colorfulness, entropy, clipping, and deterministic quality findings.
• Annotation previews record bbox, keypoint, and mask retention observations in preview manifests.
• compare_preview_runs includes annotation_summary when annotation observations are available.
• summarize_tuning_session returns quality_score, quality_risk, and structured quality_findings.
• record_tuning_decision and list_tuning_decisions provide a local JSON-backed tuning decision journal.

What Changed In 0.6

• Added task-aware quality profiles for balanced, classification, detection, segmentation, and OCR review.
• Added rank_preview_candidates to choose between multiple candidate preview runs.
• Added export_tuning_report for Markdown or JSON handoff from the local tuning decision journal.
• Extended golden MCP evals to cover two-candidate ranking and report export.

What Changed In 0.7

• Added recommend_recipe for task-aware workflow envelopes around conservative starter pipelines.
• Added score_dataset_preview_candidates for dataset-level candidate metrics and finding counts.
• Added export_preview_report for Markdown or HTML visual handoff with contact sheets and decision context.
• Exposed albumentationsx://recipes/catalog for recipe discovery by MCP hosts.
• Extended golden MCP evals to cover recipes, dataset scoring, and preview report export.

What Changed In 0.8

• recommend_recipe now returns structured explanations for profile selection, targets, feedback tags, and workflow.
• export_preview_report now embeds Markdown image refs or HTML thumbnails for contact sheet artifacts.
• Report snapshot tests use deterministic tiny PNG fixtures to lock visual handoff output.
• Golden MCP evals verify recipe explanations and preview report image markup.

What Changed In 0.9

• Added record_preview_feedback and list_preview_feedback for concrete example/variant feedback.
• Added host example resources for the preview feedback loop and visual report handoff.
• Golden MCP evals now cover the "example 8 is too noisy" review path through stdio.

What Changed In 0.10

• export_preview_report now includes matching concrete preview feedback records in Markdown and HTML handoffs.
• Golden MCP evals verify that recorded feedback note, target, and tags appear in the visual preview report.
• v1 readiness is defined around stable public MCP contracts, schema snapshots, and a compatibility policy.

What Changed In 0.11

• Added deterministic MCP contract snapshots for public tools, resources, resource templates, and prompts.
• Added scripts/export_mcp_contract.py to regenerate reviewed contract fixtures.
• Added docs/COMPATIBILITY.md for compatible additions, breaking changes, deprecations, and required coverage.

What Changed In 0.12

• Added representative output contract snapshots for recipe, scoring, feedback, and preview report responses.
• Added scripts/export_output_contracts.py to regenerate reviewed output fixtures.
• Extended compatibility guidance so response-shape changes get explicit fixture coverage.

What Changed In 0.13

• Added docs/INSTALL.md as the canonical MCP host install guide.
• Documented PyPI, MCP Registry, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, bounded local roots, smoke checks, and troubleshooting in one place.
• Added documentation tests to keep host setup guidance and example snippets aligned with the published package command.

What Changed In 1.0

• Declared the public MCP tool, resource, prompt, package metadata, and representative output contracts stable.
• Added docs/V1_READINESS.md as the release audit for contract freeze, snapshots, golden evals, install flow, compatibility policy, and publication checks.
• Updated package maturity metadata to Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable.

What Changed In 1.1

• Added albumentationsx://examples/client-smoke as a post-install MCP host smoke playbook.
• The smoke playbook verifies capabilities, recipe discovery, recommend_recipe, and validate_pipeline before preview rendering reads local images.
• Updated the public MCP contract snapshot and host setup docs for the new compatible resource.

V1 Readiness

v1.0.0 freezes public tool/resource names, response fields, package metadata, and host workflows. v0.11.0 added tool/resource/prompt snapshots and compatibility rules; v0.12.0 added representative output contract snapshots; v0.13.0 added the host install guide and documentation checks. The final release gate is tracked in docs/V1_READINESS.md.

Demo Workflow

1. Use recommend_recipe to choose the starter pipeline, quality profile, feedback tags, explanations, and next tools.
2. Call validate_pipeline for the recommended pipeline.
3. Call render_preview_batch on a small local image set.
4. Adjust with structured feedback such as too_noisy, too_noisy:high, or too_distorted.
5. Render one or more candidate preview batches with the same inputs.
6. Call compare_preview_runs before accepting a candidate and inspect quality_summary.findings.
7. Call record_preview_feedback when the user points to a concrete example such as "example 8 is too noisy".
8. Call list_preview_feedback and reuse aggregated_feedback_tags for the next adjust_pipeline call.
9. Call rank_preview_candidates and score_dataset_preview_candidates with the matching quality profile.
10. Call record_tuning_decision for accepted or rejected candidates.
11. Call export_preview_report for visual handoff with contact sheet thumbnails and concrete feedback, export_tuning_report for decision history, then export_pipeline.

See docs/INSTALL.md for host setup, docs/USAGE.md for an end-to-end MCP host workflow, docs/RECIPES.md for task-specific host recipes, docs/DEMO.md for a generated preview comparison demo, CHANGELOG.md for release notes, docs/COMPATIBILITY.md for public contract rules, docs/RELEASE.md for the package and MCP Registry release process, server.json for public discovery metadata, and evals/golden_mcp_scenarios.yaml for executable MCP scenarios.

Verification

uv run pytest
uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run ty check
uv run python scripts/run_golden_evals.py
uv build