feat(extension): implement simple solution to --package flag (#1090)

* feat(extension): implement simple solution to --package flag

.changeset/upset-ants-return.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"extension": patch
+---
+
+Fix issues with some users not being able to connect to Taskmaster MCP server while using the extension

apps/extension/package.json

@@ -64,16 +64,16 @@
 			"properties": {
 				"taskmaster.mcp.command": {
 					"type": "string",
-					"default": "npx",
+					"default": "node",
-					"description": "The command or absolute path to execute for the MCP server (e.g., 'npx' or '/usr/local/bin/task-master-ai')."
+					"description": "The command to execute for the MCP server (e.g., 'node' for bundled server or 'npx' for remote)."
 				},
 				"taskmaster.mcp.args": {
 					"type": "array",
 					"items": {
 						"type": "string"
 					},
-					"default": ["task-master-ai"],
+					"default": [],
-					"description": "An array of arguments to pass to the MCP server command."
+					"description": "Arguments for the MCP server (leave empty to use bundled server)."
 				},
 				"taskmaster.mcp.cwd": {
 					"type": "string",
@@ -238,6 +238,9 @@
 		"watch:css": "npx @tailwindcss/cli -i ./src/webview/index.css -o ./dist/index.css --watch",
 		"check-types": "tsc --noEmit"
 	},
+	"dependencies": {
+		"task-master-ai": "*"
+	},
 	"devDependencies": {
 		"@dnd-kit/core": "^6.3.1",
 		"@dnd-kit/modifiers": "^9.0.0",

apps/extension/package.publish.json

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 	"name": "task-master-hamster",
 	"displayName": "Taskmaster AI",
 	"description": "A visual Kanban board interface for Taskmaster projects in VS Code",
-	"version": "0.22.3",
+	"version": "0.23.0",
 	"publisher": "Hamster",
 	"icon": "assets/icon.png",
 	"engines": {

apps/extension/src/utils/mcpClient.ts

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import { Client } from '@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/index.js';
 import { StdioClientTransport } from '@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/stdio.js';
 import * as vscode from 'vscode';
+import * as path from 'path';
 import { logger } from './logger';
 
 export interface MCPConfig {
@@ -143,7 +144,7 @@ export class MCPClientManager {
 			// Create the client
 			this.client = new Client(
 				{
-					name: 'taskr-vscode-extension',
+					name: 'task-master-vscode-extension',
 					version: '1.0.0'
 				},
 				{
@@ -211,6 +212,30 @@ export class MCPClientManager {
 			};
 
 			logger.log('MCP client connected successfully');
+
+			// Log Task Master version information after successful connection
+			try {
+				const versionResult = await this.callTool('get_tasks', {});
+				if (versionResult?.content?.[0]?.text) {
+					const response = JSON.parse(versionResult.content[0].text);
+					if (response?.version) {
+						logger.log('━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━');
+						logger.log('✅ Task Master MCP Server Connected');
+						logger.log(`   Version: ${response.version.version || 'unknown'}`);
+						logger.log(
+							`   Package: ${response.version.name || 'task-master-ai'}`
+						);
+						if (response.tag) {
+							logger.log(
+								`   Current Tag: ${response.tag.currentTag || 'master'}`
+							);
+						}
+						logger.log('━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━');
+					}
+				}
+			} catch (versionError) {
+				logger.log('Note: Could not retrieve Task Master version information');
+			}
 		} catch (error) {
 			logger.error('Failed to connect to MCP server:', error);
 			this.status = {
@@ -312,6 +337,34 @@ export class MCPClientManager {
 				'Available MCP tools:',
 				result.tools?.map((t) => t.name) || []
 			);
+
+			// Try to get version information by calling a simple tool
+			// The get_tasks tool is lightweight and returns version info
+			try {
+				const versionResult = await this.callTool('get_tasks', {});
+				if (versionResult?.content?.[0]?.text) {
+					// Parse the response to extract version info
+					const response = JSON.parse(versionResult.content[0].text);
+					if (response?.version) {
+						logger.log('━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━');
+						logger.log('📦 Task Master MCP Server Connected');
+						logger.log(`   Version: ${response.version.version || 'unknown'}`);
+						logger.log(
+							`   Package: ${response.version.name || 'task-master-ai'}`
+						);
+						if (response.tag) {
+							logger.log(
+								`   Current Tag: ${response.tag.currentTag || 'master'}`
+							);
+						}
+						logger.log('━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━');
+					}
+				}
+			} catch (versionError) {
+				// Don't fail the connection test if we can't get version info
+				logger.log('Could not retrieve Task Master version information');
+			}
+
 			return true;
 		} catch (error) {
 			logger.error('Connection test failed:', error);
@@ -345,8 +398,34 @@ export function createMCPConfigFromSettings(): MCPConfig {
 	);
 	const config = vscode.workspace.getConfiguration('taskmaster');
 
-	let command = config.get<string>('mcp.command', 'npx');
+	let command = config.get<string>('mcp.command', 'node');
-	const args = config.get<string[]>('mcp.args', ['task-master-ai']);
+	let args = config.get<string[]>('mcp.args', []);
+
+	// If using default settings, use the bundled MCP server
+	if (command === 'node' && args.length === 0) {
+		try {
+			// Try to resolve the bundled MCP server
+			const taskMasterPath = require.resolve('task-master-ai');
+			const mcpServerPath = path.resolve(
+				path.dirname(taskMasterPath),
+				'mcp-server/server.js'
+			);
+
+			// Verify the server file exists
+			const fs = require('fs');
+			if (!fs.existsSync(mcpServerPath)) {
+				throw new Error('MCP server file not found at: ' + mcpServerPath);
+			}
+
+			args = [mcpServerPath];
+			logger.log(`📦 Using bundled MCP server at: ${mcpServerPath}`);
+		} catch (error) {
+			logger.error('❌ Could not find bundled task-master-ai server:', error);
+			// Fallback to npx
+			command = 'npx';
+			args = ['-y', 'task-master-ai'];
+		}
+	}
 
 	// Use proper VS Code workspace detection
 	const defaultCwd =

package-lock.json

@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 {
 	"name": "task-master-ai",
-	"version": "0.23.0",
+	"version": "0.23.1-rc.0",
 	"lockfileVersion": 3,
 	"requires": true,
 	"packages": {
 		"": {
 			"name": "task-master-ai",
-			"version": "0.23.0",
+			"version": "0.23.1-rc.0",
 			"license": "MIT WITH Commons-Clause",
 			"workspaces": [
 				"apps/*",
@@ -86,6 +86,9 @@
 		},
 		"apps/extension": {
 			"version": "0.23.0",
+			"dependencies": {
+				"task-master-ai": "*"
+			},
 			"devDependencies": {
 				"@dnd-kit/core": "^6.3.1",
 				"@dnd-kit/modifiers": "^9.0.0",