Dumbwaiter MCP: Wait-for-Change

Goal: give Claude a single, stable way to “wait until X happens” on a code host (GitHub now; GitLab next). This skill teaches Claude when and how to use the Dumbwaiter MCP server’s tools.

Prerequisites

• Server: this repo builds a stdio MCP server (cargo build && target/debug/dumbwaiter-mcp).
• Auth: export GITHUB_TOKEN=… (repo read permissions are sufficient for commit statuses).
• Persistence (optional): DUMBWAITER_DB to override ./state/dumbwaiter.sqlite.
• Await settings (optional): DUMBWAITER_AWAIT_TTL_SECS (default 900), DUMBWAITER_ENGINE=1 to enable the background engine (legacy alias DUMBWAITER_WATCHER=1 still works).

When to use this skill

• You need to pause orchestration until PR checks turn green, a PR is merged, or checks fail.
• You want durable waits with a wait_id, cancellable and recoverable after restarts.
• You want progress updates visible to the host via MCP notify_progress.

Tools overview