Lightweight headless CI distribution (no MCP, LSP, interactive UI)

[sajeetharan]

Feedback source

External user feedback (travel multi-agent workshop team).

Problem

The current single-binary distribution bundles everything: interactive shell, MCP server, LSP, brokered auth, OpenTelemetry, ARM management. For CI/CD use cases (data seeding, CRUD, queries, integration test validation), most of this is unnecessary weight and attack surface.

Proposed solution

Ship a separate lightweight, headless CI distribution with:

• Predictable exit codes (stable contract)
• JSON output mode (--output json)
• Workload-identity authentication (federated credentials, no interactive browser)
• Core commands: import, query, assert, CRUD
• No MCP, LSP, brokered authentication, or interactive UI

Implementation options (in priority order)

1. Same .NET codebase with trimming/Native AOT — feature-flag the build to exclude MCP/LSP/interactive modules, use .NET publish trimming or NativeAOT for a smaller binary
2. Go or Rust reimplementation of the CI-only subset — smallest possible binary, no runtime dependency

Splitting the feature set is more important than changing languages.

Relationship to other issues

• Complements A1. Non-interactive output contract (NDJSON / --output json / stable exit codes) #155 (A1 — non-interactive output contract)
• Addresses size concern in Package size (50-60 MB compressed / ~200 MB installed) is friction for ephemeral CI/CD runners #174
• Pairs with CI/CD documentation (#TBD)

Acceptance criteria

• CI distribution is < 15 MB compressed
• Supports workload-identity auth (OIDC federated credentials)
• Stable exit-code contract documented
• JSON output for all commands
• No dependency on interactive terminal or browser