Programmatically manage agents
Note
This functionality is in early access and still evolving. For now, we recommend testing it in a demo or staging environment, rather than deploying to production.
Join our Discord channel or contact us to get help or share feedback.
Prerequisites
- A Coder deployment with v2.21 or later
- A template configured for AI agents
Overview
Once you have an agent running and reporting activity to Coder, you can manage it programmatically via the MCP server, Coder CLI, and/or REST API.
MCP Server
Power users can configure Claude Desktop, Cursor, or other tools with MCP support to interact with Coder in order to:
- List workspaces
- Create/start/stop workspaces
- Run commands on workspaces
- Check in on agent activity
In this model, an IDE Agent could interact with a remote Coder workspace, or Coder can be used in a remote pipeline or a larger workflow.
The Coder CLI has options to automatically configure MCP servers for you. On your local machine, run the following command:
coder exp mcp configure claude-desktop # Configure Claude Desktop to interact with Coder
coder exp mcp configure cursor # Configure Cursor to interact with Coder
MCP is also used for various agents to report activity back to Coder. Learn more about this in custom agents.
Coder CLI
Workspaces can be created, started, and stopped via the Coder CLI. See the CLI docs for more information.
REST API
The Coder REST API can be used to manage workspaces and agents. See the API docs for more information.