Roland

AI agent orchestration as an MCP server — multi-agent recipes, cost visibility, and IDE-native personas.

Roland is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives your IDE agent superpowers: multi-agent recipe workflows, auto-pilot triage, session cost tracking, budget management, and 32 specialized agent personas exported directly into VS Code (Copilot) and Cursor as native config files.

IDEs control which model runs your requests — Roland focuses on what they can't do: orchestrating multi-step workflows across specialized agents, tracking what you're spending, and triaging every prompt to the right persona.

Version: 2.0.0

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Key Features

MCP Tools

Ten tools exposed to any MCP-compatible client (VS Code Copilot, Cursor, Claude Desktop, etc.):

Tool	Purpose
health_check	Server status & uptime
triage	Auto-pilot — analyze any prompt → recommend agent + recipe
route_model	Analyze task complexity → recommend cheapest adequate model
track_cost	Log token usage, return session totals
manage_budget	Get/set/reset spending limits
get_analytics	Cost & token breakdowns by model, agent, provider
suggest_mode	Recommend quick/standard/deep effort level
list_recipes	Browse available multi-agent workflow recipes
start_recipe	Begin a multi-agent recipe session, get first step prompt
advance_recipe	Submit step output, get next step or final summary

32 Specialized Agent Personas

YAML-defined agents in ./agents/, exported as IDE-native config files:

Agent	Role
architect	System design & architecture
researcher	Information gathering & analysis
executor	Implementation & coding
designer	UI/UX design
planner	Task breakdown & planning
critic	Code review & validation
qa-tester	Quality assurance & testing
writer	Documentation & technical writing
analyst	Data & trend analysis
vision	Technical strategy & long-term planning
scientist	Data analysis & hypothesis testing
security-reviewer	Security auditing & hardening
build-fixer	Build error resolution
code-reviewer	Comprehensive code review
tdd-guide	Test-driven development guidance
explore	Codebase navigation & mapping

Most agents have tiered variants (-low, -medium, -high) for different depth levels.

9 Pre-Built Recipes

Multi-agent workflow templates in ./recipes/:

Recipe	Agent Chain	Use Case
PlanExecRevEx	Planner → Executor → Reviewer → Explainer	Autonomous coding loop
BugFix	Analyst → Researcher → Architect → Executor → QA → Critic → Writer	Systematic bug resolution
RESTfulAPI	Architect → Executor → Critic → Writer	API design through docs
SecurityAudit	Architect → Critic → Executor → Writer	Threat modeling to remediation
WebAppFullStack	Architect → Designer → Executor → Critic → Writer	Full-stack development
MicroservicesArchitecture	Architect → Executor → Critic → Writer	Service decomposition
DocumentationRefactor	Analyst → Architect → Writer → Critic	Codebase-aware doc improvement
DesktopApp	Architect → Designer → Executor → QA → Critic → Writer	Desktop/native app development
CodeReviewCompliance	Researcher → Code-Reviewer → Critic → Writer	Code review & requirements compliance

Auto-Pilot Mode

Roland includes a triage tool and a Cursor auto-pilot rule (roland-autopilot.mdc) that fires on every message. When enabled, the IDE automatically calls triage before processing your prompt, which analyzes your intent and recommends the best agent or recipe — no @agent mention required.

Skip conditions: explicit @agent mentions, direct tool/recipe requests, mid-recipe steps, follow-up questions.

Cost Visibility & Budget Management

IDEs provide zero insight into what you're spending. Roland fills that gap:

• Session cost tracking — per-model, per-agent, per-provider breakdowns
• Budget management — set spending limits with real-time enforcement
• Cost analytics — understand where your tokens go across sessions
• Model routing (advisory) — complexity analysis recommends the cheapest adequate model, but the IDE ultimately controls model selection

IDE-Native Integration

Run npm run init -- /path/to/your/project to set up any project with Roland, or npm run export-configs for the Roland repo itself:

• .github/agents/*.agent.md — VS Code Copilot agent personas (70 files: 32 agents + 38 recipe handoffs)
• .cursor/rules/*.mdc — Cursor rule files (32 files + auto-pilot rule)
• .vscode/mcp.json / .cursor/mcp.json — MCP server configuration
• .github/copilot-instructions.md — Project-wide agent instructions

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.0.0

Install & Build

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/roland.git
cd roland
npm install
npm run build

Use in Any Project

After building, run the init command to set up Roland in your target project:

npm run init -- /path/to/your/project

This copies all agent personas, recipe configs, MCP server config, and the auto-pilot rule into your project. Then:

1. Open your project in Cursor or VS Code
2. The MCP server starts automatically when the IDE connects
3. Agent personas are available in chat (e.g., @architect, @executor)
4. Auto-pilot mode triages every prompt to the best agent/recipe

Verify: Ask your IDE agent to "Use the health_check tool" — you should get status: healthy.

See INSTALLATION.md for detailed setup instructions (includes global Cursor config option).

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      IDE / MCP Client                       │
│  (VS Code Copilot, Cursor, Claude Desktop)                 │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                   MCP Server (stdio)                        │
│  (mcp-server.ts — 10 registered tools)                     │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                  Orchestration Layer                        │
│  (model-router, complexity-classifier, cost-tracker)       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│              Recipe Sessions & Agent Definitions            │
│  (recipe-session, YAML agents & recipes)                   │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                   Support Systems                           │
│  (config-loader, budget-manager, logger)                   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Stack: TypeScript 5.7 · Node.js 18+ · MCP SDK 1.0.4 · YAML/Zod

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Documentation

• INSTALLATION.md — Setup & IDE configuration
• RECIPES_CATALOG.md — Complete recipe reference
• CHANGELOG.md — Version history
• TESTING.md — Test strategy & running tests
• docs/guides/budget-guide.md — Cost management
• docs/guides/cache-guide.md — Caching strategies

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Development

npm run build           # Compile TypeScript → dist/
npm run dev             # Watch mode (auto-rebuild)
npm run init -- <path>  # Set up Roland in an external project
npm run export-configs  # Regenerate IDE configs for this repo
npm test                # Run tests
npm run lint            # Lint check
npm run clean           # Remove dist/
npm start               # Start MCP server directly

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License

MIT