The CLI starts connecting its MCP servers when a turn starts and does
not wait for them, so the first turn of a session sees only built-in
tools. Measured on the pi with two HTTP MCP servers: turn 1 reports both
`pending` with 29 tools available, turn 2 reports both `connected` with
90. For an agent whose job is those tools, that first reply is silently
wrong — the model doesn't see them and answers as best it can.
The PTY transport hid this: its multi-second wait for the TUI to settle
happened to cover the connect. Nothing about the headless path does, and
nothing cheap fixes it — an 8s pause before the first prompt changed
nothing, a `/status` slash command returns in 134ms without touching the
MCP client, and a `control_request`/`initialize` handshake answers with
the command list and leaves the servers pending. Only a real turn does
it, so `warmup_turn` spends one deliberately: a few tokens and a couple
of seconds, once per session, against sessions that are pooled for the
whole conversation.
The price is two short messages at the head of the transcript, which is
why the default prompt reads as procedural rather than conversational.
Also log, at WARNING, any MCP server a turn starts without — this is a
failure with no other symptom, and it should be one grep away rather
than a mystery about the agent forgetting a tool it has.
hh
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