registry/docs/server-json
Repository files (latest commit first)
Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Avish Porwal c3b72ef3a6
Add more validation for free-form server fields (#272)
<!-- Provide a brief summary of your changes -->
The changes are intended to create validators for all the free-form
fields. Please find the details of the validation of different field
below.

- Repository.Source: only github and gitlab is accepted.
- Repository.Url - It should be a valid github or gitlab URL. Created
regex for both.
- Server.Name - Max 200 char can be there. Reverse domain name
verification is part of another PR (not owned by me).
- Package.Name - Max 200 char and no spaces.
- Server.Description - Max 100 char.
- Remote.Url - It should be valid URL.

## Motivation and Context
<!-- Why is this change needed? What problem does it solve? -->
The motivation was to make the code clean and add base code for more
validator for different objects like Repository etc.
https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/issues/97

## How Has This Been Tested?
It's tested via UTs. Added UT's for all the validations.

## Breaking Changes
Yes

## Types of changes
<!-- What types of changes does your code introduce? Put an `x` in all
the boxes that apply: -->
- [ ] Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
- [ ] New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
- [x] Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing
functionality to change)
- [ ] Documentation update

## Checklist
<!-- Go over all the following points, and put an `x` in all the boxes
that apply. -->
- [x] I have read the [MCP
Documentation](https://modelcontextprotocol.io)
- [ ] My code follows the repository's style guidelines
- [x] New and existing tests pass locally
- [x] I have added appropriate error handling
- [ ] I have added or updated documentation as needed

Co-authored-by: Avish Porwal <avishporwal@microsoft.com>
Co-authored-by: Adam Jones <adamj+git@anthropic.com>
2025-08-27 01:58:41 +01:00
..
examples.md Add $schema to server.json specification to enable versioning, IDE autocomplete (#308) 2025-08-27 01:30:25 +01:00
README.md Add $schema to server.json specification to enable versioning, IDE autocomplete (#308) 2025-08-27 01:30:25 +01:00
registry-schema.json Add $schema to server.json specification to enable versioning, IDE autocomplete (#308) 2025-08-27 01:30:25 +01:00
repository_references.md Add $schema to server.json specification to enable versioning, IDE autocomplete (#308) 2025-08-27 01:30:25 +01:00
server.schema.json Add more validation for free-form server fields (#272) 2025-08-27 01:58:41 +01:00

server.json file

There are a variety of use cases where a static representation of an MCP server is necessary:

  • Discoverability on a centralized registry (i.e. our official Registry work)
  • Discoverability on a decentralized .well-known endpoint
  • As a response to an initialization call, so the client knows information about the MCP server to which it is connecting
  • As an input into crafting a DXT file
  • Packaged in with the source code of an MCP server, so as to have a structured way to identify a server given just its source code

All of these scenarios (and more) would benefit from an agreed-upon, standardized format that makes it easy to port around and maintain a consistent experience for consumers and developers working with the data. At the end of the day, it's all the same data (or a subset of it). MCP server maintainers should have to manage one copy of this file, and all these use cases can serve that file (or a programmatic derivative/subset of it).

Please note: this is different from the file commonly referred to as mcp.json, which is an MCP client's configuration file for running a specific set of MCP servers. See this issue.

References:

  • server.schema.json - The official JSON schema specification for this representation
  • examples.md - Example manifestations of the JSON schema
  • registry-schema.json - A more constrained version of server.schema.json that the official registry supports

Validation Tools

Two validation tools are provided in the repository's tools/ directory:

  • validate-schemas - Validates that server.schema.json and registry-schema.json are valid JSON Schema documents
  • validate-examples - Validates that all JSON examples in examples.md conform to both schemas

Usage

From the repository root:

Validate JSON Schemas

./tools/validate-schemas.sh

Validate Examples

./tools/validate-examples.sh