Canary
Working with agents
Updated: 2026-09-30 21:23 CEST
canary mcp is a deliberately small, read-only adapter for local AI clients.
It reads the same typed daemon authority as the CLI and paired app, but it has
no streaming resources and cannot preview, place, modify, cancel, exercise, or
transmit a broker action.
For exact parameters, use the generated MCP tools reference.
Setup
The Claude Code plugin carries the Canary skill, safety hooks, and MCP server
configuration. Install the canary binary separately, then verify the host:
claude plugin details canary@canary
claude mcp list
canary status
Fully quit and relaunch the host after updating Canary. MCP hosts keep their
stdio child alive across chats; canary restart restarts the shared daemon,
not that child process.
Start with the brief
For “what matters today?” or “what changed since the close?”, use
canary_brief. It is the same combined post-trade and pre-trade report used by
the CLI and paired app. It includes current market-risk posture, portfolio and
PnL context, rulebook adherence, actions, and explicit missing or stale inputs.
The MCP read never stamps or acknowledges the report.
Canary owns the severity order, so an agent or app never sorts the brief itself.
attention_order lists what needs attention across the pre-trade rows and the
rulebook: the drawdown tier (ready.capital), then the drawdown latch
(ready.latch), then each alert-mode rule at act (rules.<id>, in the
rulebook's ranking), then any other pre-trade row at attention. ready.ranked
orders every pre-trade row: attention first, then degraded, unavailable, and ok.
Drill into narrower evidence only when needed:
canary_accountandcanary_positionsprovide account-scoped detail.canary_regimereturns the eight market indicators, cluster confirmation, and source health.canary_stressreturns full portfolio-risk evidence, including margin, exposure, concentration, options, and protection.canary_rulesexplains policy adherence and unknown inputs. Rule 1 is the worst-case loss on one issuer with every leg netted: each offender carries its ownstatus, so a second issuer between the levels readswatchwhile the row readsact, andissuerlists the legs, the hedges credited or not, and the legs that keep losing as the price rises. Rules 16 to 18 watch and never act; never count them as an act. Whenpolicy_status.reviewisunreviewed, the limits are Canary's defaults that the owner has not yet reviewed, not approved numbers.canary_technicalanalyzes explicitly named stock or ETF symbols.canary_proposalsreads close/reduce-only protection candidates and, when the owner enabled it, the cash sweep's bill buys and redemptions.canary_opportunitiesreads option-exercise candidates.canary_orders_open,canary_orders_history, andcanary_order_statusinspect the local order lifecycle without changing it.canary_trading_status,canary_settings, andcanary_statusexplain capability, configuration, and degraded data.
Monitor profile
canary mcp --profile monitor
The low-token monitor profile exposes only canary_brief and canary_status.
Use the brief for the desk decision surface and status only to diagnose
connectivity or degraded inputs.
Safety and evidence
MCP output is evidence, never broker-write authority. Missing or stale data is not a clean result, and a cached or held market-risk value is display context only. Multi-account responses must identify one current account and mode; otherwise the daemon refuses account-scoped authority.
Protection and exercise candidates are discovery records. Actual submission requires the separate gated CLI or paired-app flow, a fresh exact preview or preflight, and an explicit transaction-specific instruction from the user.
Policy files are the owner's. An agent reads limits and the policy-file list
(canary policy show --json includes each file's review state and what waits
for the owner's number) but never edits a policy file or runs
canary rules policy set on the owner's behalf.