Netwright MCP server

Netwright

Playwright-style automation for .NET desktop apps. Netwright is an MCP server that lets AI agents see and operate WPF, WinForms and WinUI apps: they launch your project, read the UI as compact text, act without stealing your mouse, verify the result, and turn the verified flow into a regression test.

Formerly WPF-MCP. Version 2.0 is a rewrite; see Migrating from WPF-MCP 1.x.

> desktop_app action=launch project=src/Orders/Orders.csproj
Launched Orders.exe (pid 9120, WPF, launched by Netwright)
- window "Orders" [e1]

> desktop_snapshot
- window "Orders" [e1]
  - textbox "Customer" [e4] #txtCustomer
  - combobox "Country" [e5] #cmbCountry collapsed
  - checkbox "Accept terms" [e6] #chkTerms unchecked
  - button "Save" [e7] #btnSave disabled

> desktop_set_state target=#chkTerms checked=true
checked checkbox "Accept terms" [e6] #chkTerms
~ checkbox "Accept terms" [e6] #chkTerms checked
~ button "Save" [e7] #btnSave

> desktop_click target=#btnSave
clicked button "Save" [e7] #btnSave
+ window "Confirm" [e9] modal
  + text "Save order 42?"
  + button "Yes" [e10]

Why Netwright

• Made for .NET apps. Works with WPF, WinForms (.NET and .NET Framework 4.x) and WinUI/MAUI through UI Automation. It launches straight from a .csproj, captures stdout/stderr and Trace output, and reports crashes with the exception and stack trace.
• Cheap in tokens.
• Snapshots are filtered to what an agent needs: unnamed layout panes are collapsed, and grids are summarized row by row.
• Actions answer with a Change Report of what appeared, disappeared or changed, so the agent rarely needs another snapshot.
• Refs (e12) stay valid across snapshots.
• Stays out of your way. Actions run in the background through UI Automation patterns, so you keep working while the agent tests. Key presses and right-clicks are explicit, briefly take focus, and give it back.
• Reliable by default.
• Every action waits until its target is enabled and on screen.
• It then waits for the UI to settle, so async screens don't need sleeps.
• Failures come back as error codes with a hint about what to do next.
• From exploration to regression tests. desktopexpect verifies state, and desktopexport_test turns the session into a C# test on Netwright.Testing (xUnit, NUnit or MSTest).

Benchmark

Same scenarios, same Fixture App, same token encoding for every server (full methodology and all numbers in benchmarks/results):

¹ Windows-MCP summarizes the whole desktop instead of the app's UI tree; its grid snapshot does not include the rows. ² Its actions work at screen coordinates with the real mouse, so scripted flows were not run.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.