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Archal provides a management-plane MCP server for sandbox lifecycle and state. Provider operations remain on each environment’s own REST or MCP connection.

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Local stdio

Run the lifecycle server for an MCP client that supports stdio:
The CLI reads its protected Archal credential. Do not pass that credential to the agent under test.

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Hosted Streamable HTTP

Connect to:
Authenticate the management connection with the Archal workspace bearer key. Provider MCP connections use the returned environment mcpUrl and exact credentials.headers map instead.

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Lifecycle tools

  • environments_list
  • environment_describe
  • sessions_list
  • session_create
  • session_status
  • session_wait
  • state_validate
  • state_get
  • state_load
  • state_diff
  • session_reset
  • session_renew
  • session_destroy
  • evidence_get
Hosted session_create can return while provisioning continues. Use session_wait or poll session_status before giving connections to a test. Hosted destroy can acknowledge durable teardown before physical deletion.

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Keep the tool boundary small

The lifecycle MCP server does not federate thousands of GitHub, Slack, Jira, and other provider tools into one namespace. When an environment returns an mcpUrl, connect to that provider surface separately with its short-lived credential. This keeps lifecycle authority distinct from the agent’s task tools. State loading and reset are destructive. A trusted coding agent may propose them, but it should not execute them without approval for the exact target or a preconfigured disposable CI boundary.