MCEC

MCEC — the Model Context Environment Controller — is eyes, hands, and a safe front door for AI agents on Windows, and the same battle-tested TCP/serial remote control for integration systems it has always been.

It is a small, self-contained native Windows daemon that gives a computer use model (the same capability Claude, Codex, and similar agents use to see a screen and drive a keyboard and mouse) something to mount, see through, and drive: capture a window as a PNG, read its UI Automation tree, find and wait for controls, launch apps, and actuate keyboard/mouse/window input, over the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The agent surface is opt-in and off by default; the 3.0 agent features are purely additive over the classic remote-control command surface (network and serial), which is unchanged.

Install with winget: winget install Kindel.mcec — see Install.

The chapters

• Install: install with winget or the signed installer; what gets installed where, running side-by-side copies, and disposable provisioned instances for agents.
• Configuration - everything you can configure: the Settings dialog (every tab), the mcec.settings file, the command table, and logging.
• Agent Control - the computer use surface: the observation, targeting, and actuation tools, the structured result envelope, and the MCP / localhost-HTTP transports.
• Agent Safety: command-access consent, disposable isolated session provisioning, the emergency-stop hotkey, and the on-screen command overlay.
• Remote Control - the classic role: listen on TCP/IP or a serial port and translate remote commands into keystrokes, text, mouse, window messages, and app launches (Control4, iRule, Crestron, and others). The same chapter covers the User Activity Monitor, which runs the flow in reverse: it reports when someone is actively using the PC, turning the machine into an occupancy sensor that can drive lighting and scenes.
• Examples: worked agent-driving recipes (hero GIFs, prompt demos) and how to add more.

See also AGENTS.md for connect-time agent guidance and the dogfood recipe (MCEC driving MCEC).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Claude, Copilot, and other agent platforms already support computer use. Why would I use MCEC?

Those platforms aim for cross-platform reach, so their computer use is built primarily on computer vision: a screenshot, interpreted by a vision model, on every step. That is slow (a network round trip per observation) and token-expensive (a full-window PNG on every turn). MCEC is Windows-only by design, so it can go deeper than pixels: query reads the real Windows UI Automation tree (control type, name, automation ID, bounds, enabled state, value), letting an agent target and verify a specific control instead of re-parsing an image every step. capture (a real screenshot) is still there for when vision is the right tool. And because MCEC speaks the Model Context Protocol (MCP), it works with any MCP-capable agent, Claude, Codex, or a custom client, so a workflow or automated system built on it isn’t locked to one AI provider.

Q: Is it safe?

It depends on how you use it, but the defaults are safe. The agent surface is off until you opt in; every command ships individually disabled; every agent action is audit-logged on screen (the overlay) and in the log; and a global emergency-stop hotkey lets the operator halt a session instantly. See Agent Safety for the full model.

Q: What’s the history of this thing?

• 3.0 (2026): Rebranded to the Model Context Environment Controller. Agent automation over MCP: observation (capture/query/record), targeting (find/wait-for), actuation (invoke/launch/drag/click), emergency stop, and isolated session provisioning; all opt-in and off by default.
• 2.x (2019): Major rework: robust client/server, User Activity Monitor (occupancy sensing), Commands Window with built-in test mode, per-monitor DPI support, config in %APPDATA%.
• 1.x (2004–2017): Born as Media Center Edition Controller (MS later dropped the “Edition” from “Windows Media Center”) for Windows Media Center HTPCs. Grew keyboard/mouse/window-message simulation, chars: with Unicode escapes, serial support, multi-client TCP, and the .commands extension file. Moved from SourceForge to CodePlex to GitHub.

See Releases for full release notes.