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Shipper

shipper_answer_question

shipper_answer_question

Section titled “shipper_answer_question”

Provide answers to a paused headless worker that asked questions. The worker resumes with the supplied answers and continues until it either defers again (returning another awaiting_answer payload) or completes. Experimental — only registered when isMcpGroomingEnabled() returns true. See Experimental feature flags for SHIPPER_EXPERIMENTAL_MCP_GROOMING enablement.

When to use

Section titled “When to use”

Use this only after shipper_groom or shipper_advance returns an awaiting-answer session id. The answers map must include every exact question text from the currently displayed batch. If more batches are already pending from the same worker turn, the result is another single-batch awaiting_answer payload to answer before the worker can resume fully.

Behavior hints

Section titled “Behavior hints”
  • openWorldHint: true — The tool reaches GitHub or other external systems outside the MCP server.

Input schema

Section titled “Input schema”
NameTypeRequiredDefaultDescription
session_idstringyes-Paused shipper worker session id returned by an awaiting_answer response.
answersobjectyes-Map from question text to the answer to send back to the paused worker.

Example call

Section titled “Example call”
{
  "session_id": "sess-abc123",
  "answers": {
    "Which behavior should the implementation preserve?": "Keep the current MCP response shape."
  }
}

Example result

Section titled “Example result”
Status: awaiting_answer
Session: sess-abc123
Tool use id: toolu_next


The headless worker asked a batch of questions and is paused awaiting answers from the orchestrator.
Reply with `shipper_answer_question` providing { session_id, answers } where answers is a map
of question text -> your answer (free text).


Questions (JSON):
[
  {
    "question": "What should happen next?"
  }
]

Error modes

Section titled “Error modes”
  • Missing pending session: No pending shipper session with id “<session_id>”. The worker may have already completed or the MCP server may have restarted.
  • Completed before answer: Cannot submit an answer: shipper child already completed.
  • Missing current-batch answers: Missing answers for current question batch:
  • Unavailable stdin: shipper child stdin is unavailable; cannot submit answer.
  • No more events: Shipper child has already completed; no more events.
  • Missing stage transition metadata: Unable to recover the stage transition from post-run metadata.
  • Worker command failure: spawn shipper ENOENT
Section titled “Related tools”