Elicit Confirmation

👨‍💼 When users interact with our system, they sometimes initiate actions that have significant consequences (like deleting a tag or entry). To ensure users don't accidentally lose something important, we need to pause and ask for explicit confirmation before proceeding.

This is where elicitation comes in. Instead of making assumptions, our MCP server can make a structured elicitation request. This lets us ask the user for confirmation in a way that's both clear and robust, and ensures the server only proceeds if the user truly intends to take the action.

const result = await agent.server.server.elicitInput({
	message: `Are you sure you want to delete sandwich "The Big Dipper" (ID: 42)?`,
	requestedSchema: {
		type: 'object',
		properties: {
			confirmed: {
				type: 'boolean',
				description: 'Whether to confirm the action',
			},
		},
	},
})
const confirmed =
	result.action === 'accept' && result.content?.confirmed === true

if (!confirmed) {
	const structuredContent = { success: false, sandwich: existingSandwich }
	return {
		structuredContent,
		content: [
			{
				type: 'text',
				text: `Deleting sandwich "The Big Dipper" (ID: 42) rejected by the user.`,
			},
			{
				type: 'resource_link',
				uri: `bobby-sandys://sandwiches/${existingSandwich.id}`,
				name: existingSandwich.name,
				mimeType: 'application/json',
			},
			{
				type: 'text',
				text: JSON.stringify(structuredContent),
			},
		],
	}
}

If the user does not confirm, the system gracefully cancels the action and provides clear feedback (no sandwiches are harmed)!

Note you will also want to verify that the client has elicitation capabilities, and if they do not, then just proceed.

// the server.server is how the MCP SDK exposes the underlying server
// instance for more advanced APIs like this one.
const capabilities = agent.server.server.getClientCapabilities()
if (capabilities?.elicitation) {
	// do the elicitation
} else {
	// proceed without elicitation
}

This approach ensures users are always in control of important actions, and the system responds with empathy and clarity.

Test this one out by using the delete_tag tool.

🐨 Kody will be there in

src/tools.ts

to help you implement this.

The MCP Inspector does not support elicitation yet, so you can check that our capabilities check is working by running the delete_tag tool, but to verify your elicitation is working, you'll need to run the tests.

02. Elicitation/01. Elicit Confirmation (💪 problem)

Elicit Confirmation