Glossary

Use this page when a term appears before the surrounding architecture has been explained. The short definitions here are practical; detailed contracts live in the linked reference pages.

Core terms

Term Meaning
MCP Server The STDIO Model Context Protocol server process that exposes WPF diagnostic tools to MCP clients.
MCP client The application or agent that calls MCP tools, reads resources, and follows prompts. Treat it as untrusted from the server security model's point of view.
Target The WPF executable being inspected. Security policy requires an exact local absolute executable path for every target.
Inspector The in-process WPF component that runs on the target application's Dispatcher and reads WPF-native state.
SDK-hosted Inspector An Inspector started by an application you own through InspectorSdk.Initialize(). Prefer this path for production-owned apps.
Raw injection The fallback path where the server injects the Inspector into a reviewed target process. It is blocked unless explicitly allowed.
Bootstrapper The native bridge that loads the correct managed Inspector runtime during raw injection.
Named Pipe The local IPC channel between the MCP Server and Inspector host. Requests use length-prefixed JSON framing.
HMAC secret The shared secret used for challenge-response authentication on Inspector connections.
TLS over named pipes The secure transport layer used by default for Inspector communication.

Security terms

Term Meaning
Allowlist A list of exact local absolute executable paths that the server may inspect or inject into. Path fragments and relative paths are not enough.
Fail closed The safe default: when a policy value is missing, false, malformed, or ambiguous, the server blocks the operation.
Policy gate A server-side capability check that runs before returning process details, UI text, screenshots, ViewModel values, or mutations.
Sensitive reads Reads that may expose UI text, binding values, DependencyProperty values, event payloads, tree/scene summaries, or runtime state.
Destructive tools Tools that can interact with or mutate the running app, including clicks, ViewModel changes, DependencyProperty changes, render measurement, snapshots, and batch mutations.
ViewModel inspection Reading or using ViewModel state, commands, DataContext chains, or ViewModel mutation helpers.
Screenshot gate The policy gate that must be enabled before element_screenshot can return pixel data or screenshot resources.

Response and workflow terms

Term Meaning
structuredContent The canonical machine-readable WPF payload returned by modern tools. Text output is only a compact fallback.
navigation.recommended Tool-provided next-step guidance. Prefer it before improvising a workflow.
nextSteps Compatibility follow-up guidance for older clients. Newer clients should prefer the navigation envelope.
prefetchTools Advisory tool names that a schema-aware client may load before a likely follow-up.
contextRefs Descriptive JSON references in a response. They are not executable handles.
Scene summary A compact semantic overview from get_ui_summary, useful before tree-heavy inspection.
Element snapshot Focused one-element diagnostics from get_element_snapshot(elementId) after a concrete elementId is known.
Snapshot Captured runtime state used to compare or restore after an approved mutation.
Rollback Restoring a captured snapshot so a diagnostic mutation does not leave the app changed.
diagnosticKind A response hint that identifies what type of diagnostic result or failure was returned.