feat: add 2026-05-20 weekly meeting notes (#39)

meetings/2026-05-20_weekly.md

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+# **2026-05-20 MCP: Transport Working Group (Weekly)**
+
+# **TL;DR**
+
+The meeting established a delayed, structured release timeline for the official
+specification and triaged a large volume of documentation and schema bugs
+identified via automated analysis. The official specification release date was
+pushed to July 28th to allow for a comprehensive beta SDK testing and hardening
+period throughout June. Technical alignment was achieved on enforcing the TTLMS
+format as an integer to prevent cross-language duration implementation
+discrepancies and on auto-encoding headers that collide with the reserved ?B64?
+prefix.
+
+# **Detailed Summary**
+
+## **Delayed Specification Release Timeline**
+
+* **Delayed Schedule:** The core maintainers rescheduled the official spec
+  release to July 28th. The timeline includes: finishing conformance tests by
+  May 22nd, delivering beta versions of Python and TypeScript SDKs by June 30th,
+  and a one-month hardening period in July.  
+* **Beta Hardening Purpose:** Caitie McCaffrey explained that this large
+  "one-off" release lands major structural changes. SDK and client implementers
+  will use the beta period to test integrations (e.g., VS Code tracking) and
+  flag issues before the final freeze.
+
+## **Schema, Prefix, and Documentation Fixes**
+
+* **Cacheable Schema Discrepancy:** Kurtis Van Gent identified that cacheable
+  result fields (TTLMS, cacheScope) were marked as required in the schema but
+  documented as optional; Caitie McCaffrey accepted the task to resolve this
+  mismatch.  
+* **Double-Wrapped JSON Examples:** Shaun Smith and Stephen Halter identified
+  JSON examples where client capabilities were double-wrapped; Stephen Halter
+  volunteered to fix the nested structures.  
+* **Tension Point \- Meta Prefix Reservation:** Jonathan Hefner highlighted a
+  conflict between `schema.ts` and `index.mdx` regarding the reservation of the
+  `meta` prefix. Mark Roth suggested simplifying the rule to strictly reserve
+  `io.modelcontextprotocol`, but Caitie McCaffrey noted the complex existing
+  terminology must be maintained.  
+* **Tension Point \- TTLMS Format:** Andreas Schlapbach questioned the
+  introduction of the term `TTLMS` instead of the standard HTTP `TTL` duration
+  format. Luca Chang and Kurtis Van Gent defended using milliseconds as an
+  integer, citing that it ensures cross-language implementation consistency and
+  avoids parsing complexities in Go or Java.
+
+## **Stateless Protocol Hardening**
+
+* **Server-Initiated Requests:** Kurtis Van Gent and Mark Roth noted that the
+  Message-Routing and Transport-Refinement (MRTR) worked examples still
+  incorrectly showed removed server-initiated JSON-RPC patterns.  
+* **Stateless Invariant Bug:** Kurtis Van Gent identified that paginated
+  requests (`tools.list`, `server/discovery`) in the schema might omit the
+  `_meta` field, which carries the protocol version in stateless environments.  
+* **Header Character Constraints:** Mike Kistler pointed out character
+  consistency issues in headers, specifically regarding carriage returns and
+  line feeds. Stephen Halter warned that invalid characters can cause SDKs to
+  throw generic 400 errors.  
+* **Tension Point \- Reserved Prefix Collision:** Mike Kistler and Stephen
+  Halter debated a corner case where a value accidentally collides with the
+  `?B64?` prefix. The group agreed that the client SDK must Base64 encode any
+  header values starting with that prefix.
+
+# **Next Steps & Timeline**
+
+All contributors are expected to submit pull requests for their assigned
+documentation and schema fixes by the Friday deadline (May 22nd). Core
+maintainers will establish a dedicated documentation branch to track edits
+systematically.
+
+# **Action Items**
+
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Fix the cacheable schema to ensure that cacheable
+  result fields are correctly marked as required.  
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Correct the double-wrapped JSON in client
+  capabilities examples.  
+- [ ] **Stephen Halter** Resolve the meta prefix rule conflict between the
+  source of truth schema and the index file.  
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Remove removed server-initiated JSON-RPC request
+  patterns from worked examples.  
+- [ ] **Shaun Smith** Adjust the resources subscribe capability in the schema
+  and documentation to align with current mechanisms.  
+- [ ] **Kurtis Van Gent** Modify the schema to ensure stateless tool listing
+  requests require the protocol version in the `_meta` field.  
+- [ ] **Mike Kistler** Fix character consistency issues in headers and update
+  conformance tests to enforce carriage return/line feed restrictions.  
+- [ ] **Mike Kistler** Update untested conformance test cases identified by the
+  new dashboard.  
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Audit and verify missing required fields throughout
+  all documentation files.  
+- [ ] **Andreas Schlapbach** Review assigned specification issue group 1 for
+  gaps.  
+- [ ] **Gabriel Zimmerman** Review assigned specification issue group 2 for
+  gaps.  
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Review assigned specification issue group 3 for gaps.  
+- [ ] **Jonathan Hefner** Review assigned specification issue group 4 for gaps.  
+- [ ] **Luca Chang** Review assigned specification issue group 5 for gaps.  
+- [ ] **Mike Kistler** Review assigned specification issue group 6 for gaps.  
+- [ ] **Mike Kistler** Perform the audit on the first group assignment.  
+- [ ] **Mark Roth** Review assigned specification issue group 7 and examine the
+  missing mandatory result type.  
+- [ ] **Kurtis Van Gent** Resolve the sessionless protocol collision (method not
+  found vs missing client capability).  
+- [ ] **Shaun Smith** Fix resource subscriptions meta object issues for groups 4
+  and 8\.  
+- [ ] **Luca Chang** Revise reference level documentation for extensions to use
+  the updated protocol form.  
+- [ ] **Kurtis Van Gent** Consult with Peter Alexander regarding server
+  capabilities discovery and initialization behavior.  
+- [ ] **Mike Kistler** Modify the spec to require Base64 encoding for values
+  colliding with the reserved prefix.  
+- [ ] **Stephen Halter** Fix group 9 links, case-sensitive link fragments, and
+  incorrect method names in mermaid diagrams.  
+- [ ] **Kurtis Van Gent** Initiate a documentation branch with core maintainers
+  to manage upcoming changes.  
+- [ ] **Caitie McCaffrey** Review time-to-live requirement documentation and
+  submit a fix.
+
+Source: [Meeting Notes — May 20,
+2026](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OOMAdWR2Ds9FYV8PbXmkGv3cskB5GiPzQd8oLyrIaNU/edit?usp=meet_tnfm_email)