Automatic MCP enablement

[markgranoff]

Please explain the motivation behind the feature request.
There are a myriad of MCPs one might want to use, and one's relatively small personal list grows daily. Depending on the task at hand, a different subset might make sense.

It is frustrating to enable what you think you need, ask Goose to do something, only to be told Goose can't complete the task. Often, it's because an available MCP (already defined) is not enabled. So this means I have to enable it and re-query Goose. Kind of a time sink there.

Describe the solution you'd like

It would be awesome if Goose could know the basic capabilities for any given MCP defined locally in Available Extensions. If a query requires some capability provided in an extension not already enabled, but defined locally, Goose could automatically enable the extension(s) it needs to accomplish the task. (Perhaps place this automation behind a setting toggle to enable it.)

I think this could be a great time (and frustration) saver!

Describe alternatives you've considered

G2 might be an alternative because once services are connected, the right MCPs seem to just get used. But the difference between a local Goose session vs G2 might start to show. Not sure, to be honest.

Additional context
none

• I have verified this does not duplicate an existing feature request

[DOsinga]

it's probably not working well enough then, but we do have the extensionmanager extension that does this. it looks at all the extensions it could possibly enable and does so when needed

[markgranoff]

I was unaware. 🤦 Where do I get it? Is it somewhere in our mcp repo?

[DOsinga]

it comes with goose directly. if you go to extensions, you should see it. if you dissable all of them, except for the extensionmanager and you type: can you enable the todo extension?

you should see:

[markgranoff]

Oh, I see what you are saying.

What I was suggesting was the extension manager (since it exists. yay!) should be pro-active about enabling extensions that are present but disabled if such an extension is needed to complete the task without having to fail, have the user enable the extension (or ask Goose to enable it) and requery. In other words, make Goose with the Extension Manager a little more autonomous with regard to enabling extensions that are available but disabled.

[markgranoff]

For example, the result of this query would have been more effective if Goose had just gone ahead and enabled the obvious available but disabled extension (gmail), rather than give me the choice

I disabled a bunch of extensions, and tried this query again in a new chat. Goose said it was enabling a bunch of extensions. Gmail was not among them (which I do have available). Goose proceeded to want to access Mail.app.

In a similar re-try in a new chat, I asked how many unread Gmail message I had. Goose wanted to use Safari to login to gmail. (I get why that is preferred for the general public, but here at Block, obviously, that's now what anyone would expect I think.)

Anyway... maybe the takeaway from this ticket is to give Goose and Extension Manager a little more autonomy to a) understand what disabled extensions are available and what they can do, and enable them proactively (without asking) to accomplish tasks, as needed.

[markgranoff]

And to close the loop. When I enabled the Gmail extension myself, and then asked in a new chat "How many unread emails do I have?" Goose did exactly the right thing. 😄 Since one cannot have every extension enabled all the time, making Goose a little more autonomous about what extensions it enabled (and perhaps disables when not needed) would go a long way to making Goose conversations more streamlined with less time lost on configuration minutiae.

[DOsinga]

yes, but that's rather beyond goose core control. I think the feature you want exists, goose can if it wants enable extensions and it does look at the extensions you have. how the gmail extension describes itself though and whether the model goose is using triggers on that, unfortunately that's all up to the LLM gods.

[markgranoff]

Fair enough. Thanks for engaging with me on this. I have a better understanding of what is possible, and where the likely the place might be to affect the change I seek. 😄