## Motivation and Context
Follow-up to https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/ruby-sdk/issues/512#issuecomment-5285679761
A comment on #512 reported that results stay unstamped when a client negotiates `2026-07-28` through
the legacy `initialize` handshake: the SEP-2322 `resultType` stamp and the SEP-2549 cache hints are
both gated on the per-request `_meta` envelope, which such a connection never carries,
so strictly validating clients reject every result as missing the REQUIRED `resultType`.
The root cause sits upstream of the stamp. Per the SEP-2575 era model, an era is a property of
the protocol version itself: legacy versions establish a session via `initialize`
(`2025-11-25` and earlier), and modern versions carry their version on every request in `_meta` with
no handshake at all - the 2026-07-28 schema defines no `initialize`, and a request without the envelope
is malformed. The negotiation list of this server still contained `2026-07-28`, producing a hybrid state
the spec does not define and the reference SDKs refuse to construct: the TypeScript server negotiates
from `SUPPORTED_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS`, which stops at `2025-11-25`, and counter-offers its first entry;
the Python server negotiates from `HANDSHAKE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS`, which stops there too,
and counter-offers `LATEST_HANDSHAKE_VERSION`.
`initialize` now negotiates from a new `SUPPORTED_HANDSHAKE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS` list
(`2025-11-25` and earlier): a request for `2026-07-28`, or for a version this server does not know,
is counter-offered `2025-11-25`, exactly as both reference SDKs answer. A counter-offered client proceeds on
`2025-11-25`, where `resultType` does not exist and its absence is the correct shape,
resolving the reported rejection. `2026-07-28` stays reachable through `server/discover` and
the per-request envelope, where the stamps already apply. The `envelope &&` stamp gates are
intentionally unchanged: with the handshake capped, an envelope-less `2026-07-28` connection is
no longer constructible, so the gates are correct by construction.
The client side is symmetrized the same way, matching both reference SDKs:
the legacy handshake offers `LATEST_HANDSHAKE_PROTOCOL_VERSION` by default,
passing an explicitly modern `protocol_version` to the legacy connect raises `ArgumentError`
(validated before the stdio transport spawns its child process), and a server answering `initialize` with
a modern version is rejected like an unknown one. `:auto` forwards an explicitly modern version to
the discovery probe and never downgrades it into the legacy fallback: the probe's failure is
the real answer and propagates, instead of the fallback dying on the handshake guard.
The handshake rule itself lives in one place (`Configuration.reject_modern_handshake_version!`),
and the handshake list is derived from the stable and modern lists so the era partition cannot drift
when the next revision lands.
Two consequences are worth naming. The roots/sampling deprecation warnings move to the modern connect
on the client, the revision where SEP-2577 actually deprecates them, since the handshake can no longer land
on a deprecating version and the call site the warnings used to sit on had become unreachable.
On the server the answer is removal: `Configuration#protocol_version` scopes the handshake,
so it now accepts handshake versions only and rejects a modern pin with `ArgumentError` at construction.
Accepting one would configure nothing (a modern version has no handshake to pin),
and neither reference SDK carries a config value that is accepted but inert:
Python's negotiation has no knob at all, and every entry of the TypeScript server's `supportedProtocolVersions`
is consumed by its own era's mechanism. With no path left onto a deprecating revision,
the server-side deprecation warning plumbing became unreachable and is removed along with it.
Keying those warnings on a modern-era session instead was tried and rejected,
because `notify_log_message` is the SEP-2575 sanctioned delivery path on that wire and every log line
would then carry a deprecation warning for doing exactly what the revision prescribes
(a single test file produced over a thousand of them).
A session-bound request may still stamp `MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28` after being counter-offered,
and such a request continues to be served at the negotiated revision rather than rejected.
Sending the negotiated version is a SHOULD on the client, and the spec's `400 Bad Request` rule
covers a version the server does not support, which is not the case here: this server does serve `2026-07-28`,
through the other lifecycle. The session it is bound to decides, and a test now pins that reading along with
its consequence, which is that no `resultType` appears on those results.
Two details follow from the pin being handshake-scoped. Reading it back when nothing is set
now answers `LATEST_HANDSHAKE_PROTOCOL_VERSION` rather than the newest version of any era,
so the getter no longer hands out a value its own writer rejects and round-tripping
the setting keeps working; only `Server#validate!` reads that default,
through three comparisons that answer the same for either value, so nothing else moves.
And the rejection names its reason instead of listing the accepted versions,
because this is the error an upgrade from a release that accepted the value lands on,
which makes it the migration note a bare list would not be.
`MCP::ProtocolDeprecations` says in its own documentation that only the client emits these warnings now,
and that `LOGGING_MESSAGE` has no caller left. It stays public and callable: removing it would be
a breaking change for no gain.
The handshake examples in `docs/building-clients.md` and the shared `initialize_params` test helper
now use the handshake version as well, and the README section on `protocol_version` describes the pin as
handshake-scoped: handshake versions only, `ArgumentError` for a modern one, the handshake version as the default,
and `2026-07-28` reached through `server/discover` with no configuration needed.
## How Has This Been Tested?
New regression tests pin the reported scenario end to end: an `initialize` requesting `2026-07-28` is
counter-offered `2025-11-25`, locks the legacy era, and subsequent results carry no `resultType`
(the correct shape at that revision). Client-side tests cover the default `2025-11-25` offer,
the `ArgumentError` for an explicitly modern version on the legacy connect
(asserting no child process is spawned on the stdio transport), the rejection of a modern `InitializeResult`
on both transports, the `:auto` probe failure propagating for an explicitly modern version instead of
falling back, and the deprecation warning firing on modern connects declaring roots/sampling capabilities.
Counter-offer adoption gets its own test on both transports, since the server-side fix only resolves anything for
clients that honor a counter-offer, and this client is one of them: the offer is the latest handshake version,
the answer is an older one, and the connection speaks the answer afterwards
(over HTTP the next request's `MCP-Protocol-Version` header carries it). The existing tests could not tell adoption
from an echo, because every one of them had the server answer with the version the client had just offered.
Both new tests were confirmed to fail when the client is made to report its own offer instead.
Tests that pinned the previous dual-lifecycle negotiation were inverted or reworked:
the server tests asserting `2026-07-28` echoes and fallbacks now assert the counter-offer,
and the deprecation warning tests keyed on a legacy-negotiated `2026-07-28` now assert no warning fires.
The server-side deprecation tests that reached their state by calling `mark_initialized!` with a modern version,
or by pinning one in `Configuration`, were replaced by tests asserting no warning fires on those paths,
since no code path can produce the warning state any more; `Configuration` rejecting a modern pin has its own tests
on the constructor and the setter, asserting the reason in the message rather than the list of accepted values.
The default-pin test now also round-trips what it reads back into a fresh `Configuration`,
which is what the old default could not do. The default move was checked for neutrality outside
the suite as well, by building a server that uses every feature `Server#validate!` gates on that value
(`description`, `title`, `website_url`, `instructions`, a `$ref` input schema, and tool annotations)
and confirming all of them are still accepted.
## Breaking Changes
Servers no longer echo `2026-07-28` from `initialize`: clients that negotiated it through
the handshake are counter-offered `2025-11-25` and are served at that revision, matching
the TypeScript and Python servers. `Configuration.new(protocol_version: "2026-07-28")` now
raises `ArgumentError` (the pin scopes the handshake, which cannot land there);
the value was only accepted since v1.1.0, whose handshake behavior this change replaces anyway.
Reading `Configuration#protocol_version` with no pin set answers `2025-11-25` instead of `2026-07-28`;
nothing in this SDK behaves differently for either value, but code comparing that reader against
a literal will see the change. The client no longer offers modern versions on the legacy handshake
and rejects a modern `InitializeResult`. Server-side deprecation warnings for SEP-2577 features
no longer fire at all, because no negotiation or configuration path can put a connection on a deprecating revision;
the client-side warning on a modern connect replaces them.
## Motivation and Context
Clients that require MCP 2026-07-28, such as ChatGPT, reject connections because the SDK
does not advertise that version: `Server#init` answers a 2026-07-28 request with 2025-11-25,
the Streamable HTTP transport 400s an `MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28` header,
and `server/discover` omits the version from `supportedVersions`.
Making 2026-07-28 the latest entry in `SUPPORTED_STABLE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS` fixes all three at once,
since they all read that list. The version now serves both lifecycles of the SEP-2575 dual-era model:
negotiable through the legacy `initialize` handshake, and simultaneously the version of
the per-request modern lifecycle.
Parts of the 2026-07-28 feature set remain unimplemented, such as the stateless modern lifecycle
over the transports, and are being built separately. This change deliberately limits itself to
the version bump, focusing first on eliminating the connection errors that 2026-07-28 clients hit.
Known follow-up: the in-progress modern HTTP path routes requests to the sessionless modern lifecycle
when the header version is absent from `SUPPORTED_STABLE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS`, so that routing predicate
needs rework on top of this change.
Closes#474
## How Has This Been Tested?
New regression tests: `initialize` with `protocolVersion: "2026-07-28"` echoes it back (`server_test.rb`),
a follow-up POST with `MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28` passes header validation
(`streamable_http_transport_test.rb`), and `Configuration.new(protocol_version: "2026-07-28")` is accepted
(`configuration_test.rb`).
`bundle exec rake test` passes (1454 runs, 0 failures). The conformance server suite passes 30/30.
The client `initialize` scenario is added to the expected-failures baseline: the conformance framework pins
the client's requested version to 2025-11-25 and does not accept 2026-07-28 yet; the entry carries a TODO
to remove it when the framework catches up.
## Breaking Changes
Servers that do not pin `configuration.protocol_version` now answer version negotiation fallbacks
and default client requests with 2026-07-28 instead of 2025-11-25. 2025-11-25 remains fully supported
and negotiable; clients that request it are unaffected.
## Motivation and Context
CRuby's `IO#gets` without a limit reads until the next newline with no upper bound.
A peer that never emits a newline can therefore grow a single String until the process
is killed by the OS OOM killer.
This is a denial-of-service exposure (GHSA-7683-3w9x-ch42), identified during
a cross-SDK audit of the same unbounded-buffer pattern across the MCP SDKs.
It is most relevant when a host application spawns a sandboxed or untrusted MCP server
and pipes its stdout into an unconstrained host process, where a memory-capped peer
can exhaust the host.
Each frame is now capped at a configurable `max_line_bytes` (default 4 MiB,
large enough for any realistic frame including base64-embedded images,
and the value recommended in the advisory). A frame that reaches the limit without
a newline is treated as a transport error: the client raises, and the server reports
the error and closes the connection. A short final frame that ends at EOF without
a trailing newline is still accepted, so legitimate traffic is unaffected.
Both constructors validate `max_line_bytes:` as a positive Integer,
since `nil` or a non-positive value makes `IO#gets` read without an upper bound and
would silently disable the protection.
## How Has This Been Tested?
Server tests cover the `open` read loop stopping and reporting on an over-limit frame,
the `send_request` read loop raising on an over-limit response, and a valid final frame
without a trailing newline still being processed.
Client tests cover `read_response` raising on an over-limit response frame and
a normal response still round-tripping within a custom `max_line_bytes`.
Both transports also have tests rejecting invalid `max_line_bytes:` values
(`nil`, zero, negative, non-Integer) with an `ArgumentError`.
The full test suite and RuboCop pass.
## Breaking Changes
None. The default 4 MiB limit is far larger than any realistic JSON-RPC frame,
so existing well-behaved traffic is unaffected. The new `max_line_bytes:` keyword
on both transport constructors is purely additive and optional.
## Motivation and Context
This commit implements Phase 1 of 3 for #334.
The MCP specification requires an `initialize` request followed by
a `notifications/initialized` notification before any other interaction.
PR #327 added `MCP::Client#connect` and `MCP::Client::HTTP#connect`
to expose this handshake explicitly for the HTTP transport,
but stdio remained on its private `initialize_session` lazy-init path,
inconsistent with the Python SDK (`ClientSession.initialize()`) and
TypeScript SDK (`Client.connect(transport)`),
both of which require an explicit handshake call regardless of transport.
The implicit init path on the first `send_request` is
preserved as a non-breaking compatibility shim. Public API added on `Stdio`:
- `connect(client_info:, protocol_version:, capabilities:)` performs the
handshake, validates the negotiated `protocolVersion` against
`MCP::Configuration::SUPPORTED_STABLE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS`,
caches the `InitializeResult`, and is idempotent.
- `connected?` reports handshake completion.
- `server_info` exposes the cached `InitializeResult`.
Documentation and examples are updated so new users learn the explicit pattern
from the start.
## How Has This Been Tested?
Fifteen regression tests cover: explicit handshake, `server_info` caching,
idempotence, custom keyword arguments, JSON-RPC error response, missing
or non-Hash `result`, unsupported protocol version with state rollback,
state rollback when the `notifications/initialized` write fails,
retry after a failed handshake, and the `connected?` / `server_info` lifecycle.
The pre-existing stdio tests pass without modification, verifying that
the implicit-init compatibility path still works.
## Breaking Changes
None for the typical "implicit init via `client.tools` / `client.call_tool`" usage.
Existing stdio clients keep working unchanged.
Three observable behavior changes for code that inspects transport state directly:
- `Client#connected?` for a never-initialized stdio client returns `false`
(previously fell through to a `true` default via the `respond_to?` fallback).
- `Client#server_info` for stdio returns the cached `InitializeResult`
after the handshake (previously always `nil` via the fallback).
- The implicit handshake path now validates the server's negotiated
protocol version, raising `RequestHandlerError` for unsupported versions.
Production servers that return one of the supported versions are unaffected;
this closes a pre-existing spec-conformance gap on stdio.
Per MCP spec, clients that no longer need a session SHOULD send an HTTP
DELETE to the MCP endpoint with the Mcp-Session-Id header to explicitly
terminate it. Servers MAY respond with 405 Method Not Allowed when they
don't support client-initiated termination.
`MCP::Client::HTTP#close` sends the DELETE with session headers, clears
local session state regardless of outcome, and is a no-op when no
session has been established.
https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25/basic/transports#session-management
Per the Streamable HTTP spec, if the server returns an Mcp-Session-Id
header during `initialize`, the client MUST include it on subsequent
requests. Capture the session ID and protocol version from the
`initialize` response and attach them automatically on subsequent
POSTs.
Per the Protocol Version Header section of the spec, the client MUST
also include `MCP-Protocol-Version` on all subsequent requests so the
server can respond based on the negotiated protocol version.
Map 404 responses to a new `SessionExpiredError` (a subclass of
`RequestHandlerError` for backward compatibility) and clear local
session state so callers can start a fresh session with a new
`initialize` request, as required by the spec.
- https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25/basic/transports#session-management
- https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25/basic/transports#protocol-version-header
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Streamable HTTP spec allows servers to respond with either
`application/json` or `text/event-stream`. The client previously
rejected the latter. Add SSE parsing via the optional
`event_stream_parser` gem (users add it to their Gemfile when their
server uses SSE), dispatch on the response Content-Type, and scan the
event stream for the first JSON-RPC response message.
Document the new optional dependency in both the README's HTTP
Transport Layer section and docs/building-clients.md.
No other Streamable HTTP features (202 handling, session IDs,
`connect`, DELETE termination) are included here; those will land in
follow-up PRs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Follow-up to https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/ruby-sdk/pull/181.
The landing page at https://ruby.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io previously only listed version links
to RubyDoc.info. Add multi-page documentation using the just-the-docs Jekyll theme with
sidebar navigation, search, and code highlighting.
Pages: Introduction, Installation, Building Servers, and Building Clients.
This PR introduces a basic set of pages. Additional content can be added incrementally in future updates.
Koichi ITO
Yuki Minamiya
Ates Goral