Feature Request: Real-Time Progress Updates for MCP Tools

[farazshaikh]

Feature Request: Real-Time Progress Updates for MCP Tools

Problem

MCP tools with long-running operations show no progress feedback, while terminal commands display real-time status updates. This creates an inconsistent user experience.

Current: 30 seconds of silence while MCP tool executes
Expected: Real-time progress updates (like terminal commands show)

Context

The MCP specification includes standard progress notification support via notifications/progress. Kilocode already has the perfect infrastructure for this - the McpExecutionStatus system used for streaming terminal output.

Proposed Solution

Apply the same pattern used for CommandExecutionStatus to MCP progress notifications:

3 Small Changes:

1. Send progressToken in tool calls (McpHub.ts:1655)

   _meta: { progressToken: uuidv4() }
   2. Handle ProgressNotificationSchema (NotificationService.ts)
   client.setNotificationHandler(ProgressNotificationSchema, (notification) => {
   // Send mcpExecutionStatus with status: "output"
   provider.postMessageToWebview({
   type: "mcpExecutionStatus",
   text: JSON.stringify({
   executionId,
   status: "output",
   response: [${percent}%] ${message}
   })
   })
   })
   3. Track executionId ↔ progressToken mapping

Benefits

• Consistent UX (MCP tools = terminal commands)
• Generic for ALL MCP servers (not vendor-specific)
• MCP spec compliant
• No breaking changes
• Uses existing UI infrastructure

Impact

Benefits any MCP server with long-running operations:

• Database queries
• File processing
• API integrations

Users get real-time feedback instead of wondering if the operation is stuck.