Shared lab machines are where polite README quick starts go to die.
I maintain Lore Solo — a local MCP helper that routes coding-agent tasks to approved persona skills instead of dumping a whole skill binder into context. The happy path is short:
uvx lore-solo install
uvx lore-solo setup
uvx lore-solo connect
On a university library PC that path fails for boring reasons: no uv, Node 16 instead of 18+, home directory locked down, Graphify missing so the map step looks broken, or no editor config folder for connect to write into. None of that is mysterious. It is just expensive to discover after the first npm ci.
What 0.1.2 adds
uvx lore-solo doctor
Or from a clone of the solo branch:
./scripts/lore-solo doctor
# Windows: .\scripts\lore-solo.ps1 doctor
Doctor checks, for the OS you are on:
| Check | Required? | If missing |
|---|---|---|
| uv | yes | no uvx / install |
| Node.js 18+ | yes | setup site will not run |
| npm | yes | first setup build fails |
write access to ~/.lore
|
yes | install cannot land |
installed lore-solo binary |
no | editors that expect ~/.lore/bin miss it; uvx still works |
| Graphify map | no | no codebase map; personas still work |
| detected editors | no |
connect has nowhere to register; project .cursor/mcp.json backup still works |
Missing items print an OS-specific install hint (curl vs PowerShell for uv, brew / winget / nodejs.org for Node, VS Build Tools note for the optional map on Windows) and a one-line "without this you lose…" note. Exit code 1 means a required tool is missing.
Why bother
Most MCP tutorials assume a developer laptop. Building Your First MCP Server and FastMCP walkthroughs get the protocol right. Lab PCs fail earlier: package managers, Node major versions, and writable homes. Cursor MCP setup guides help once the binary exists; doctor is the gate before that.
The README now has an explicit prerequisites table for the same reason. Doctor is the executable version of that table.
Try it
uvx lore-solo doctor
uvx lore-solo install
uvx lore-solo setup
Repo / branch: starrynight-web/LORE solo. Package: lore-solo 0.1.2 on PyPI once the release is published.
If you ship local MCP tools for classrooms or club machines, a doctor/check command pays for itself the first time Node is too old and the error is three screens deep in a Next build log.
Top comments (1)
One failure mode that caught us on shared university boxes was /tmp mounted with noexec. Even with write access to ~/.lore, tools like uvx or package post-installs often unpack temporary wheels or build artifacts into $TMPDIR and try to execute helper binaries from there. It blows up with Permission denied while which uv and the home directory look completely healthy. Having doctor touch a scratch script inside tempfile.gettempdir() and verify execution flag support saves a lot of head-scratching on hardened lab images.