dea — Claude Code MCP server: what it does, how to install
Gives a coding agent syscall traces, CPU profiles, thread stacks and open sockets from a live process, without breakpoints or a restart.
claude mcp add dea -- npx -y dea-agentsWhat dea does
The server attaches to a pid, container or pod you point it at. Behind the scenes it drives strace, py-spy, perf, lsof, tcpdump, gdb/lldb and the Node inspector, then hands the agent structured findings rather than raw terminal noise. Every finding carries evidence ids, so a claim about a leak or a hot path can be traced back to the tool output that produced it.
You can steer it by symptom: slow, leak, hang, crash. The battery of observations changes with the choice. There is also a CLI path, npx debuganything setup, which writes the config entry for Claude, Codex, Cursor or Gemini CLI, backs up the file first, and drops in the debug-anything skill where the agent supports skills. Restart the agent afterwards.
Expect this to sit earlier in the workflow than a step debugger. It is for the case where you have no idea where to put a breakpoint yet. The catch: the observing binaries have to be present on the machine, so a bare container without perf or strace will leave some scenarios uncovered. The npx launch needs Node.js 22 or newer.
What it helps with
- find what keeps a process growing in memory
- capture a CPU profile from a running service
- list sockets and file descriptors held by a pid
- diagnose a hung thread without restarting the app
- grab packets on a port and hand them to the agent
Example prompts for the agent
- Watch process
4821, it's slow — collect evidence and show me the bottleneck - Profile memory on the
apicontainer and find the retainer - Investigate why pod
worker-1hangs by observing its syscalls
How to install dea
Platform CLI
claude mcp add dea -- npx -y dea-agentsPlatform CLI
codex mcp add dea -- npx -y dea-agentsConfig file
{
"mcpServers": {
"dea": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"dea-agents"
]
}
}
}Config file
{
"servers": {
"dea": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"dea-agents"
]
}
}
}Platform CLI
gemini mcp add dea npx -y dea-agentsStep by step, with commands for each platform: How to add an MCP server to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and more
Questions about dea
How do I install dea in Claude Code?
Run claude mcp add dea -- npx -y dea-agents and restart the agent. Alternatively, npx debuganything setup locates the config and adds the entry for you.
What does dea do?
It observes a running process, container or pod through system tools and returns structured findings with evidence ids to the agent. The target keeps running throughout.
Which tools does it rely on?
Observation is done by strace, py-spy, perf, lsof, tcpdump, gdb/lldb and the Node inspector. The server itself launches through npx and needs Node.js 22 or newer.
