MCP Output Formats

Lexa's MCP server emits two response shapes: text only (default) and text-plus-JSON when structured content is opted in.

Text only (default)

By default every tool returns a single text content block with the same human-readable rendering the CLI would print. The JSON envelope is omitted to reduce duplicated tool output and save tokens.

Opt in to structured content

Three ways to enable it:

When enabled, every tool response includes both a text content block and a structuredContent object that mirrors the per-tool JSON shape.

The groups vs findings rule for audit

The audit response is the only one with a non-trivial shape. It exposes both a flat findings array and a grouped groups object:

• groups.primary — strong actionable findings.
• groups.secondary — lower-priority findings on the same files.
• groups.actionable — every finding tagged actionable.
• groups.candidates — every candidate finding.
• groups.risk_notes — every risk_note finding.
• groups.expected — every expected finding.

When summarizing audit output, read from groups first and only descend to findings when you need the full detail on a specific item. See the Audit CLI page for the full schema.

Per-tool JSON keys

Most tools expose the same fields as their CLI --json output. The most notable extras are path_glob and language filters on files, and the full ContextDetails shape on brief (suggested next steps, relevant symbols, relevant snippets).