This section describes how to integrate dotTEST's MCP (Model Context Protocol) server with AI coding agents, such as GitHub Copilot and Codex CLI.

The MCP server exposes dotTEST's capabilities — including static analysis rule documentation, violation reporting, and dotTEST's feature documentation — directly to AI assistants, enabling context-aware code assistance driven by dotTEST analysis results.

The MCP server is located at <INSTALL_DIR>/integration/mcp/.

Prerequisites:

• dotTEST is installed.

• Java is available (the launcher uses dotTEST's bundled JRE automatically).

Running the MCP Server Launcher

Run the MCP launcher script: <INSTALL_DIR>/integration/mcp/dottestmcp.batWhen launched, the MCP server starts a local process that communicates over stdio using the Model Context Protocol. The coding agent connects to it and gains access to the following tools:

• Search dotTEST documentation — queries dotTEST feature docs bundled in dottest-ai-docs.zip

• Get static analysis rule documentation — retrieves detailed documentation for specific dotTEST rules

• Get relevant rules — finds rules related to a given topic or keyword

• Get violations from a report — parses and filters a dotTEST XML report (report.xml) to retrieve violations

• Get a path to dottestcli — returns a path to dottestcli inside the same installation directory as the MCP server. This can be customized by setting the dottest.cli.path property in the mcp/etc/dottestmcp.properties file.

The server uses the current working directory as the workspace root and stores its local cache in .dottest/dottestmcp/ within that directory.

Integrating with GitHub Copilot

Add the dottestmcp tool via Copilot's command line (provide the full path to the batch file):

copilot mcp add dottestmcp "<INSTALL_DIR>\integration\mcp\dottestmcp.bat"

Alternatively, create or update the .copilot/mcp-config.json file in your user home with the following content:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dottestmcp": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": "<INSTALL_DIR>\\integration\\mcp\\dottestmcp.bat",
      "tools": [
        "*"
      ],
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

• Replace the <INSTALL_DIR> in the command path with the actual path to your dotTEST installation.

• The "tools": ["*"] entry enables all tools provided by the MCP server.
  • User level: ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json — applies globally to all projects.

Integrating with Codex CLI

Add the dottestmcp tool via the Codex command line (provide the full path to the batch file):

codex mcp add dottestmcp "<INSTALL_DIR>\integration\mcp\dottestmcp.bat"

Alternatively, create or update the .codex/config.toml file in your user home directory (user level) or project root (project level) with the following content:

[mcp_servers.dottestmcp]
command = "<INSTALL_DIR>\integration\mcp\dottestmcp.bat"

• Replace the <INSTALL_DIR> in the command path with the actual path to your dotTEST installation.

• The configuration file is typically located at ~/.codex/config.toml.
• Codex CLI will automatically start the MCP server process when needed and communicate with it over stdio.

MCP Server Configuration

The MCP server reads its settings from <INSTALL_DIR>/integration/mcp/etc/dottestmcp.properties. The default configuration is: 

documentation.path=${dottestmcp:root_dir}/dottest-ai-docs.zip
rule.documentation.path=${dottestmcp:root_dir}/dottest-ai-rules.zip
rule.doc.html.location=${dottestmcp:root_dir}/../../rules/doc.zip
product.name=dotTEST

These paths are resolved relative to the MCP server root directory and generally do not need to be changed. However adding the dottest.cli.path property can change the behavior of the get_dottestcli_path tool in case customization is needed.

Local Storage

The MCP server stores its runtime cache in the following location:

• Default: <workspace>/.dottest/dottestmcp/
• Fallback (if write access is unavailable): %TEMP%\dottest\dottestmcp\

The workspace directory is automatically set to the current working directory from which the coding agent launches the MCP server process.

Troubleshooting