The Registry Working Group exists to build and maintain the official MCP Registry — an open catalog and API for publicly available MCP servers — so that clients, sub-registries, and end users can discover, evaluate, and install servers with confidence. The WG owns the registry service, the server.json schema, the registry API specification, and the sub-registry ecosystem that further distributes server metadata.
Scope
In Scope
Registry Service: Operation, reliability, and evolution of the hosted registry at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io, including uptime, monitoring, and incident response.
Registry API Specification: The OpenAPI spec defining how any registry (official or private) exposes server metadata.
server.json Schema: The standardized format for describing MCP server identity, packages, runtime configuration, and capabilities — coordinated with the Server Card WG to keep Server Card a coherent subset.
Client SDKs: Generated or hand-maintained client libraries that make it easy for clients and sub-registries to integrate with the registry API.
Adoption & Outreach: Documentation, onboarding guides, and outreach to drive catalog coverage.
Issue Triage & Automation: Labeling system, triage, and contributor workflow for the registry repo.
Out of Scope
Any runtime-related MCP protocol specification aspects (owned by Core Maintainers and other WGs).
Server Card format and discovery mechanism (owned by the Server Card WG; this WG coordinates on server.json alignment).
Ranking/choosing between MCP server implementations on behalf of MCP clients or end-users.
Hosting, distributing, or executing MCP server code or binaries — the registry is a metadata catalog, not a package registry.
Any commitment to delivering an enterprise-ready or reusable registry implementation. The codebase supports this instance only and is not intended for external deployments.
Related Groups
Server Card WG — server.json and Server Card must stay aligned; the registry will expose Server Cards + local package-related metadata for published entries. Tight coordination required to avoid schema divergence.