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fix: detect stdin EOF on parent death for stdio transport#2258

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Bortlesboat wants to merge 9 commits intomodelcontextprotocol:mainfrom
Bortlesboat:fix/stdio-stdin-eof-shutdown
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fix: detect stdin EOF on parent death for stdio transport#2258
Bortlesboat wants to merge 9 commits intomodelcontextprotocol:mainfrom
Bortlesboat:fix/stdio-stdin-eof-shutdown

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@Bortlesboat
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Fixes #2231

Summary

When an MCP server using transport="stdio" has its parent process die, the server process is orphaned and continues running indefinitely. The anyio.wrap_file async iterator may not propagate stdin EOF promptly because it runs readline() in a worker thread.

This adds a background monitor that uses select.poll() to detect POLLHUP on stdin's file descriptor. When the parent process dies and the pipe's write end closes, the monitor cancels the task group, triggering a clean shutdown.

  • Only enabled on non-Windows platforms where select.poll() is available
  • Polls every 100ms with zero-timeout (non-blocking) checks
  • Gracefully degrades (no-op) when stdin has no valid file descriptor (e.g. in tests)
  • Existing tests pass unchanged

Test plan

  • Existing test_stdio_server passes (uses custom stdin, monitor correctly skipped)
  • Manual verification: start server as subprocess, kill parent, confirm server exits

@Bortlesboat
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Pushed a follow-up to address CI failure: pyright flagged g as possibly unbound in ests/server/test_stdio.py.

Commit: e4ae4d2

This removes the unbound reference and should unblock the pre-commit/type check lane.

Add a background monitor that uses select.poll() to detect POLLHUP on
stdin's file descriptor. When the parent process dies and the pipe's
write end closes, the monitor cancels the task group, triggering a
clean shutdown.

The anyio.wrap_file async iterator may not propagate EOF promptly
because it runs readline() in a worker thread. The poll-based monitor
detects the hang-up at the OS level independent of the worker thread.

Only enabled on non-Windows platforms where select.poll() is available.
Move select import and TaskGroup import to module level, add explicit
return type annotation, and add tests covering the win32 early-return,
fileno failure path, POLLHUP detection, and POLLIN-only event handling.
The write_fd cleanup in finally blocks is defensive code for error
cases that don't occur in the happy path. Mark with pragma: no cover
to satisfy 100% coverage requirement.
Use await anyio.sleep() instead of while loops to wait for monitor
cancellation. The while loop's False-condition branch was never taken
because the scope always exits via cancellation, not loop termination.
@Bortlesboat Bortlesboat force-pushed the fix/stdio-stdin-eof-shutdown branch from e4ae4d2 to b0f866f Compare March 13, 2026 04:37
Bortlesboat and others added 4 commits March 13, 2026 00:44
The while loop at line 144 always executes at least once — POLLHUP fires
after the write end is closed, not before. The zero-iteration branch
(condition False on first check) is structurally unreachable in this test
but triggers a coverage miss under branch coverage.

Mark with pragma: no branch, consistent with the pattern used elsewhere
in the test suite (e.g. test_notification_response.py).
@Bortlesboat
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Pushed coverage fix (commit 33a96b8): added # pragma: no cover to the os.close(read_fd) lines in both finally blocks. These are cleanup lines in test teardown — anyio task-group cancellation on Python 3.11/3.14 causes coverage to not trace through finally blocks in async tests on certain dependency versions, even though the lines do execute. The pragma resolves the 100% coverage gate failure without removing meaningful coverage from the library code being tested.

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Stdio transport: MCP server process survives parent death (stdin EOF not causing shutdown)

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