MCP Tools Reference: colaboratory.googleapis.com

Tool: list_sessions

Lists the open Jupyter kernel sessions on a Colab runtime, identified by its resource name (runtimes/{runtime_id}).

Returns every session currently open on the runtime, including sessions opened outside of MCP (for example by a browser pointing at the same runtime). The runtime is bound to the requesting user, so all returned sessions belong to the caller.

Use this to discover existing sessions to reuse with execute_code, or to find sessions to close with delete_session.

The following code sample shows how to use curl to call the list_sessions MCP tool.

Curl Request 
curl --location 'https://colaboratory.googleapis.com/mcp' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
--data '{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "list_sessions",
    "arguments": {
      // Provide these details according to the MCP tool specification.
    }
  },
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1
}'

Input Schema

Request message for ListSessions.

ListSessionsRequest

JSON representation 
{
  "parent": string
}
Fields
parent

string

Required. The runtime whose sessions should be listed. Format: runtimes/{runtime}.

Output Schema

Response message for ListSessions.

ListSessionsResponse

JSON representation 
{
  "sessions": [
    {
      object (Session)
    }
  ]
}
Fields
sessions[]

object (Session)

The sessions currently open on the runtime.

Session

JSON representation 
{
  "name": string
}
Fields
name

string

Identifier. The name of the session in the format runtimes/{runtime}/sessions/{session}, where session is either the value supplied via CreateSessionRequest.session_id or, if unset, a random UUID generated by the server.

Tool Annotations

Tool annotations are sent to MCP clients to describe the basic risk of a given tool. Most clients treat these hints as untrusted, but they can be used to decide when a confirmation prompt might be sent to a user.

Along with the title string, the following boolean hints are defined as follows:

  • readOnlyHint: If true, the tool doesn't modify its environment. Default: false.
  • destructiveHint: If true, then the tool can perform destructive actions. If false, then the tool can only perform additive actions. Default: true.
  • idempotentHint: If true, then calling the tool repeatedly with the same arguments will have no additional effect on its environment. Default: false.
  • openWorldHint: If true, then the tool can interact with an 'open world' of external entities. If false, then the tool can only interact with internal entities. For example, a web search tool would be open world, while a memory tool would not be open world.

Destructive Hint: ❌ | Idempotent Hint: ✅ | Read Only Hint: ✅ | Open World Hint: ❌