DYN-9355: add MCP server startup preference and toggle by RobertGlobant20 · Pull Request #17155 · DynamoDS/Dynamo

RobertGlobant20 · 2026-06-09T21:44:55Z

Purpose

DYN-9355: Add a Dynamo preference that controls whether the Dynamo MCP server starts automatically on launch. The MCP server is provided by the DynamoMCP view extension, which currently starts it unconditionally. This PR adds the user-facing setting (and the backing preference) that the extension reads to decide whether to auto-start; the extension itself also exposes a live on/off toggle in its Extensions menu (separate companion PR in the DynamoMCP repo).

Key changes:

PreferenceSettings (DynamoCore): add public bool EnableMcpServerOnStartup, defaulting to false (opt-in). Serializes to DynamoSettings.xml like the other preferences.
PreferencesViewModel: add the McpServerEnabledOnStartup wrapper that reads/writes the new preference, and change IsExperimentalExpanderVisible to return true so the Features > Experimental section is shown (it now hosts this toggle; it was previously hidden because the section had no content).
PreferencesView.xaml: add the toggle to Features > Experimental, with a label and a help tooltip explaining that the server can also be toggled live from the Extensions menu without restarting Dynamo.
Resources: add PreferencesViewEnableMcpServerOnStartup and PreferencesViewEnableMcpServerOnStartupTooltip strings (Resources.resx + Resources.Designer.cs + Resources.en-US.resx).

Companion change: the DynamoMCP extension (separate repo/PR, same DYN-9355 branch) reads EnableMcpServerOnStartup by name via reflection, so it does not take a hard compile-time dependency on this property and continues to work against Dynamo builds that predate it.

Declarations

Check these if you believe they are true

Is documented according to the standards
The level of testing this PR includes is appropriate
Changes to the API follow Semantic Versioning and are documented in the API Changes document.

Release Notes

DYN-9355: Add a Dynamo preference that controls whether the Dynamo MCP server starts automatically on launch.

Reviewers

@johnpierson @jasonstratton @edwin-vasquez-ucaldas

FYIs

@jnealb

Add a user setting to control whether the Dynamo MCP server starts automatically on launch. The DynamoMCP view extension reads this preference (by name) to gate its auto-start, and can still be toggled live from its Extensions menu. - PreferenceSettings: add EnableMcpServerOnStartup (default off). - PreferencesViewModel: add the McpServerEnabledOnStartup wrapper and make the Experimental section visible, since it now hosts this toggle. - PreferencesView: add the toggle to Features > Experimental, with a label and a help tooltip. - Resources: add the label and tooltip strings (resx + designer + en-US). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

github-actions

See the ticket for this pull request: https://jira.autodesk.com/browse/DYN-9355

RobertGlobant20 · 2026-06-09T21:45:26Z

GIF showing the functionality in Dynamo.

Add EnableMcpServerOnStartup to DynamoSettings-NewSettings.xml so TestImportCopySettings' "all properties differ from defaults" invariant holds after the new preference was introduced. Add two unit tests covering the preference: default-off behavior and persistence across a save/load round-trip. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

edwin-vasquez-ucaldas · 2026-06-10T17:26:45Z

    <comment>Preferences | Features | Experimental</comment>
  </data>
+  <data name="PreferencesViewEnableMcpServerOnStartup" xml:space="preserve">
+    <value>Start the MCP server when Dynamo launches</value>


Do we need to add the text values also for the other Languages?

Hi @edwin-vasquez-ucaldas , we provide the default (in English) and en-US and the localization team will discover that there are new strings and provide translations for us.

Thanks for clarifying — no action needed, we ship default + en-US only and the localization team picks up the new strings.

edwin-vasquez-ucaldas · 2026-06-10T17:34:04Z

+        /// automatically when Dynamo launches. When false, the server stays off until the
+        /// user enables it from the MCP extension's Extensions-menu toggle (DYN-9355).
+        /// </summary>
+        public bool EnableMcpServerOnStartup


Do we need to add the new property into the PublicAPI.Shipped.txt file? with both getter and setter signatures

Yes, but I believe they should go into PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt

Addressed in 6ab83bb — added both the getter and setter to PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt and confirmed the analyzer build passes.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds an opt-in Dynamo preference to control whether the Dynamo MCP server auto-starts on launch, and exposes that preference in the Preferences UI (Features > Experimental) via a new toggle and localized strings. This wires the UI to a new PreferenceSettings property and updates test fixtures to keep settings import/copy tests consistent.

Changes:

Add PreferenceSettings.EnableMcpServerOnStartup (default false) with persistence coverage.
Expose the preference in WPF Preferences UI via PreferencesViewModel.McpServerEnabledOnStartup + a new toggle in PreferencesView.xaml, and make the Experimental expander visible.
Add localized strings for the toggle label + tooltip; update test settings XML and add unit tests.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
test/settings/DynamoSettings-NewSettings.xml	Adds the new preference element to keep the “new settings differs from defaults” fixture valid.
test/DynamoCoreTests/Configuration/PreferenceSettingsTests.cs	Adds unit tests for default value and save/load persistence of the new preference.
src/DynamoCoreWpf/Views/Menu/PreferencesView.xaml	Adds the toggle UI under Features > Experimental.
src/DynamoCoreWpf/ViewModels/Menu/PreferencesViewModel.cs	Adds a view-model wrapper property and makes the Experimental section visible.
src/DynamoCoreWpf/Properties/Resources.resx	Adds localized label/tooltip resources for the new toggle.
src/DynamoCoreWpf/Properties/Resources.en-US.resx	Adds en-US localized label/tooltip resources for the new toggle.
src/DynamoCoreWpf/Properties/Resources.Designer.cs	Adds generated strongly-typed accessors for the new resources.
src/DynamoCore/Configuration/PreferenceSettings.cs	Adds the new persisted preference property (public API) and default initialization.

Files not reviewed (1)

src/DynamoCoreWpf/Properties/Resources.Designer.cs: Language not supported

RobertGlobant20 · 2026-06-10T22:54:46Z

                                <Grid>
                                    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                                        <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
                                        <RowDefinition Height="*"/>
                                    </Grid.RowDefinitions>


Not addressed yet — leaving as-is for now; the single content row doesn't appear to stretch in testing, but we can change the * row to Auto if any empty space shows up.

+        /// <summary>
+        /// This defines whether the Dynamo MCP (Model Context Protocol) server starts
+        /// automatically when Dynamo launches. When false, the server stays off until the
+        /// user enables it from the MCP extension's Extensions-menu toggle (DYN-9355).
+        /// </summary>
+        public bool EnableMcpServerOnStartup
+        {
+            get
+            {
+                return isMcpServerEnabledOnStartup;
+            }
+            set
+            {
+                isMcpServerEnabledOnStartup = value;
+                RaisePropertyChanged(nameof(EnableMcpServerOnStartup));
+            }
+        }


+        [Test]
+        [Category("UnitTests")]
+        public void WhenMcpServerOnStartupIsEnabledThenItPersistsAcrossSaveAndLoad()
+        {
+            string tempPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "mcpServerStartupPreference.xml");
+
+            var settings = new PreferenceSettings();
+            settings.EnableMcpServerOnStartup = true;
+
+            settings.Save(tempPath);
+            var loadedSettings = PreferenceSettings.Load(tempPath);
+
+            Assert.IsTrue(loadedSettings.EnableMcpServerOnStartup);
+        }


johnpierson · 2026-06-10T18:10:43Z

@cursor review

cursor · 2026-06-10T18:10:45Z

Skipping Bugbot: Bugbot could not find a matching SCM installation for this repository. Please reinstall the GitHub/GitLab installation and/or remove the installation from non-Bugbot accounts. Visit the Bugbot dashboard to update your settings.

jasonstratton · 2026-06-10T20:12:43Z

@johnpierson

@cursor review

Wait! We have BugBot access?

jasonstratton

Public API & test cleanup. Otherwise, looks good.

jasonstratton · 2026-06-10T20:07:04Z

    <comment>Preferences | Features | Experimental</comment>
  </data>
+  <data name="PreferencesViewEnableMcpServerOnStartup" xml:space="preserve">
+    <value>Start the MCP server when Dynamo launches</value>


Hi @edwin-vasquez-ucaldas , we provide the default (in English) and en-US and the localization team will discover that there are new strings and provide translations for us.

jasonstratton · 2026-06-10T20:08:56Z

+        /// automatically when Dynamo launches. When false, the server stays off until the
+        /// user enables it from the MCP extension's Extensions-menu toggle (DYN-9355).
+        /// </summary>
+        public bool EnableMcpServerOnStartup


Yes, but I believe they should go into PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt

jasonstratton · 2026-06-10T20:16:08Z

+            var settings = new PreferenceSettings();
+            settings.EnableMcpServerOnStartup = true;
+
+            settings.Save(tempPath);


Need to cleanup this file after the test

Addressed in 6ab83bb — the test now writes to a unique file under the per-test TempFolder, which UnitTestBase auto-cleans on teardown.

- Add EnableMcpServerOnStartup get/set to PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt to satisfy the public API analyzer (jasonstratton, Copilot, edwin). - Write the persistence test to a unique file under the per-test TempFolder (auto-cleaned by UnitTestBase) instead of a fixed temp filename, fixing the cleanup concern and the Path.Combine warning (jasonstratton, Copilot, github-code-quality). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

sonarqubecloud · 2026-06-10T22:58:31Z

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarQube Cloud

RobertGlobant20 · 2026-06-15T14:03:12Z

This PR is being closed due that the scope for this task was updated and the description/acceptance criteria for DYN-9355 was updated, then the UI implemented in this fix is not needed anymore.

RobertGlobant20 requested review from edwin-vasquez-ucaldas, jasonstratton and johnpierson June 9, 2026 21:44

github-actions Bot reviewed Jun 9, 2026

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github-code-quality Bot found potential problems Jun 10, 2026

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Comment thread test/DynamoCoreTests/Configuration/PreferenceSettingsTests.cs Fixed

edwin-vasquez-ucaldas reviewed Jun 10, 2026

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Merge branch 'master' into DYN-9355-EnableDisable-MCPServer

50310b8

QilongTang requested a review from Copilot June 10, 2026 17:50

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of QilongTang June 10, 2026 17:50 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Jun 10, 2026

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jasonstratton requested changes Jun 10, 2026

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RobertGlobant20 closed this Jun 15, 2026

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RobertGlobant20 commented Jun 9, 2026

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johnpierson commented Jun 10, 2026

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sonarqubecloud Bot commented Jun 10, 2026

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