xs-studio-mcp

xs-studio-mcp is a Model Context Protocol server for XS Studio.exe. It keeps the public MCP interface of @codesys/mcp-toolkit, and adds an XS-specific create_dut tool for ST / FB / DUT generation workflows.

What it exposes

• Resources
  • codesys://project/status
  • codesys://project/{+project_path}/structure
  • codesys://project/{+project_path}/pou/{+pou_path}/code
• Toolkit-compatible tools
  • open_project
  • create_project
  • save_project
  • create_pou
  • set_pou_code
  • create_property
  • create_method
  • compile_project
• XS extension
  • create_dut

Prerequisites

• XS Studio with scripting support
  • Default executable path on this machine: D:\Program Files\XS Studio\CODESYS\Common\XS Studio.exe
  • Default detected profile: XS Studio V2.3.2
• Python 3.11

Setup

uv python install 3.11
uv venv --python 3.11 .venv
uv pip install --python .\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -e .

Run

.\.venv\Scripts\xs-studio-mcp-tool.exe

By default each script call starts XS Studio and closes the launched process after the script reports completion. On this XS Studio build, project scripting works more reliably with the visible UI than with --noUI:

$env:XS_STUDIO_RUN_WITH_UI = "1"

To avoid opening one XS Studio window per MCP tool call, enable the reusable scripting agent. The first call opens one MCP-managed XS Studio window; later calls reuse that window through a temp-file request queue:

$env:XS_STUDIO_RUN_WITH_UI = "1"
$env:XS_STUDIO_REUSE_WINDOW = "1"

The agent files are stored under %TEMP%\xs_studio_mcp_agent\... by default. Override that with XS_STUDIO_AGENT_DIR if needed. To stop the reusable agent, close the XS Studio window, create a file named stop inside the agent directory, or run examples\packml\stop_xs_agent.cmd.

Optional flags:

.\.venv\Scripts\xs-studio-mcp-tool.exe `
  --codesys-path "D:\Program Files\XS Studio\CODESYS\Common\XS Studio.exe" `
  --codesys-profile "XS Studio V2.3.2" `
  --workspace "D:\Projects\XS-MCP" `
  --template-path "C:\Users\zhouweihai\Desktop\未命名2\未命名2.project"

Cursor / Claude MCP config

See docs/mcpServers.sample.json.

The local-repo form is:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xs_studio_local": {
      "command": "D:\\Projects\\XS-MCP\\.venv\\Scripts\\xs-studio-mcp-tool.exe",
      "args": [
        "--codesys-path",
        "D:\\Program Files\\XS Studio\\CODESYS\\Common\\XS Studio.exe",
        "--codesys-profile",
        "XS Studio V2.3.2",
        "--workspace",
        "D:\\Projects\\XS-MCP",
        "--template-path",
        "C:\\Users\\zhouweihai\\Desktop\\未命名2\\未命名2.project"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Demo project

The demo project lives at examples/hello_xs/HelloXs.project. create_project defaults to C:\Users\zhouweihai\Desktop\未命名2\未命名2.project on this machine, and falls back to XS Studio Standard.project if no configured template is available. The demo is then extended with:

• Application/MAIN
• Application/FB_Demo
• Application/FB_Demo/Execute
• Application/FB_Demo/State
• Application/DUT_RunMode

PackML demo:

examples\packml\run_packml_demo_admin.cmd

This demo runs elevated, enables XS_STUDIO_REUSE_WINDOW=1, creates a timestamped project under examples\packml, and should leave only one MCP-managed XS Studio window open.

Troubleshooting

• Path with spaces
  • This implementation quotes executable, profile, and script paths explicitly. Keep --codesys-path, --codesys-profile, and --workspace as separate MCP args in client config.
• Wrong profile
  • Verify --codesys-profile matches the installed profile name exactly.
• Script engine failure
  • Check tool output for SCRIPT_ERROR details and verify XS Studio scripting is installed.
• Compile failure
  • compile_project inspects XS Studio message objects after the build and returns MCP error output when compiler errors are present.