Rust: ergonomic SamplingHandler + typed MCP sampling request on sampling.requested
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Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 52/100
- Issue type
- Feature
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Active
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- api, developer-experience
Research direction
Start with rust/src/generated/session_events.rs and rust/src/handler.rs, comparing SamplingRequestedData with the existing handler traits. Then trace session-builder wiring in rust/src/session.rs and the sampling RPCs in rust/src/generated/rpc.rs. Done means a typed sampling request and registered SamplingHandler work together while the existing low-level methods remain usable.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Summary
The Rust binding exposes MCP sampling on the wire — the sampling.requested / sampling.completed events and the handle_pending_sampling (and execute_sampling / cancel_sampling_execution) methods — but there are two gaps for a consumer that wants to service MCP sampling requests itself (i.e. answer an MCP server's sampling/createMessage with its own model):
- The request content isn't on the typed event.
SamplingRequestedDatacarries only{ requestId, serverName, mcpRequestId }— not the MCPCreateMessageRequestparams (themessages,modelPreferences,systemPrompt,maxTokens, etc.) that a handler needs to actually produce a completion. So a consumer receives "a sampling request happened" but not what to sample. - There's no ergonomic handler. Every other consumer-serviced request has a first-class handler trait (
PermissionHandler,ElicitationHandler,McpAuthHandler,UserInputHandler, …) wired on the session builder. Sampling has none — a consumer must subscribe to the rawsampling.requestedevent and call the low-level, Experimentalhandle_pending_samplingby hand.
Current state (public Rust binding)
rust/src/generated/session_events.rs:
No sampling request params (messages / model preferences) are present.pub struct SamplingRequestedData { pub mcp_request_id: serde_json::Value, pub request_id: RequestId, pub server_name: String, } pub struct SamplingCompletedData { pub request_id: RequestId }rust/src/generated/rpc.rs:handle_pending_sampling(UIHandlePendingSamplingRequest) -> UIHandlePendingResult,execute_sampling(...),cancel_sampling_execution(...)— all marked Experimental.rust/src/handler.rs: ergonomic handler traits exist for permission, elicitation, MCP auth, user input, exit-plan-mode, auto-mode-switch — but not sampling.rust/src/session.rs: those handlers are wired on the builder (e.g.mcp_auth_handler); there is no sampling equivalent.
Why this is needed
This is a developer-experience / completeness improvement for consumers that want to fulfill MCP sampling requests with their own inference instead of the default behavior. Today such a consumer:
- can't get the request content from the typed event (has to reach past
SamplingRequestedData), and - has to hand-wire the raw event + Experimental RPC instead of implementing one trait.
It is not a capability blocker (the low-level RPCs exist), so this is a quality-of-life ask, not urgent.
Proposed change
- Expose the MCP sampling request params on
SamplingRequestedDataas a typed field (theCreateMessageRequestparams:messages,modelPreferences,systemPrompt,includeContext,maxTokens,temperature,stopSequences,metadata), so a handler can read what to sample directly from the event. - Add an ergonomic
SamplingHandlertrait inrust/src/handler.rsmirroringMcpAuthHandler:
Wire it on the session builder alongside the other handlers, and have the binding translate the trait's result into the existing#[async_trait] pub trait SamplingHandler: Send + Sync + 'static { async fn handle( &self, session_id: SessionId, request_id: RequestId, request: SamplingRequest, // typed CreateMessageRequest params ) -> SamplingResult; // completion, or None/err to reject }handle_pending_samplingcall (and reject/cancel when the handler declines), so consumers never touch the raw event or the Experimental RPC directly.
Acceptance criteria
- A consumer can register one
SamplingHandleron the session builder and receive the typed MCP sampling request (messages + model preferences), returning a completion or a rejection. - The sampling request params are available as typed data (not only reachable via the untyped/low-level path).
- The existing low-level
handle_pending_sampling/execute_samplingmethods continue to work for consumers that prefer them.
References
rust/src/handler.rs— existing handler-trait pattern (McpAuthHandleret al.) to mirror.rust/src/generated/session_events.rs—SamplingRequestedData/SamplingCompletedData.rust/src/generated/rpc.rs—handle_pending_sampling,execute_sampling,cancel_sampling_execution.- MCP spec —
sampling/createMessageand itsCreateMessageRequestparams.
- Dominant language
- Java
- Stars
- 10.5k
- Forks
- 1.5k
- Avg merge
- 1d 12h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 133
Contributor guide
First steps
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