local MCP servers can silently fail to register tools with no error surfaced

[bradross88]

Description

Local MCP servers (including WSL-wrapped ones) intermittently fail to register their tools with the active session, with no error or warning surfaced anywhere.

Observed failure modes (3 separate incidents, 2 sessions/users):

1. WSL-based server's distro was Stopped at startup - spawn likely timed out mid cold-boot, tools silently absent.
2. A local (non-WSL) server's backing process vanished mid-session with no user action; tools became unavailable with nothing surfaced.
3. Hardest case: server process confirmed alive (pgrep/ps aux match, uptime matches session start) but zero of its tools were ever available - handshake apparently never completed or was dropped.
4. Most recently: a WSL-wrapped server (bdb) served at least one tool call successfully, then its backing process exited entirely with nothing surfaced; opencode mcp list from a separate shell confirmed failed - Operation timed out after 30000ms.

Expected: if a configured, enabled MCP server fails to spawn, times out, or exits, OpenCode should surface a visible warning/error rather than silently dropping its tools.

Actual: tool list silently omits the server. The only way to notice is calling one of its tools and getting a "not available" error, or checking OS processes independently.

Also noted: no CLI-level recovery exists today - opencode mcp only has add/list/auth/logout/debug, no restart/reconnect. A dead server currently requires a full OpenCode restart to recover. Requesting opencode mcp restart <name> (or similar) alongside the fix.

Plugins

none

OpenCode version

1.18.26

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure one or more local (including WSL-wrapped) MCP servers with enabled: true in opencode.jsonc.
2. Start an OpenCode session.
3. Intermittently, some subset of those servers' tools are absent from the session's tool list - not consistently the same server each time.
4. No error, warning, or log entry is surfaced to the user indicating a registration failure occurred.

Screenshot and/or share link

No response

Operating System

Windows 11

Terminal

No response

[github-actions]

This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

• opencode serve: local stdio MCP connection silently dropped mid-session — tools become permanently unavailable #38266: opencode serve: local stdio MCP connection silently dropped mid-session — tools become permanently unavailable (same silent-drop symptom, server process stays alive, tools vanish with no error)
• MCP: every tool-list failure collapses to "Failed to get tools" — the underlying error is discarded #47644: MCP: every tool-list failure collapses to "Failed to get tools" — the underlying error is discarded (directly covers the "no error surfaced" aspect and the diagnostic gap)
• Unreachable local MCP server silently hides all file-based commands from the TUI palette #36288: Unreachable local MCP server silently hides all file-based commands (same silent failure on startup, no warning surfaced to the user)

Your request for an opencode mcp restart command is also touched on in:

• [FEATURE]: Hability to authenticate and reload MCPs without leaving a session #44087: [FEATURE]: Ability to authenticate and reload MCPs without leaving a session
• [FEATURE]: apply plugin / MCP / config changes without restarting the running session #39987: [FEATURE]: apply plugin / MCP / config changes without restarting the running session