Questions and answers
30 questions about the current MCP specification, the registries, Cloudflare and Vercel hosting, OAuth, WebMCP, A2A and how this directory verifies a server. Every answer cites a source and the date it was read. The directory also runs a read-only MCP server of its own, covered in the questions below.
The specification, transports and sign-in
What is the current MCP specification version?
The current revision is 2026-07-28, released on 28 Jul 2026. It made MCP stateless (no initialize handshake, no Mcp-Session-Id), added server/discover and deprecated Dynamic Client Registration and the HTTP+SSE transport. The previous revision was 2025-11-25. (MCP 2026-07-28 changelog, read 5 November 2026)
Is the SSE transport still supported in MCP?
HTTP+SSE has been deprecated since 2025-03-26 and the 2026-07-28 revision reclassifies it as Deprecated under a policy with a minimum twelve-month window. Several vendors already removed it: Cloudflare product servers return 410 Gone on /sse since 22 Oct 2026 and Neon retired its /sse endpoint. (MCP deprecated features, 2026-07-28, read 5 November 2026; MCP 2026-07-28 changelog, read 5 November 2026; Cloudflare changelog: Cloudflare MCP servers no longer serve /sse (22 Oct 2026), read 5 November 2026; Neon MCP server docs, read 5 November 2026)
Does an MCP server still need an initialize handshake?
Not under 2026-07-28. Each request carries its protocol version and client capabilities in _meta, and servers must implement server/discover. Clients talking to servers on earlier revisions detect the era and fall back to the old handshake. (MCP 2026-07-28 changelog, read 5 November 2026)
Should my MCP server support Dynamic Client Registration?
Support Client ID Metadata Documents first; the spec says clients and authorization servers SHOULD support them. DCR is MAY and deprecated, kept for authorization servers that lack CIMD. Cloudflare's Workers OAuth Provider v1 supports both, which is a reasonable default for a while. (MCP authorization, 2026-07-28, read 5 November 2026; Cloudflare changelog: Workers OAuth Provider v1 (1 Oct 2026), read 5 November 2026)
What does an MCP server have to publish for OAuth?
OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata (RFC 9728), usually at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource, naming the authorization server. On a request without a token, return 401 with a WWW-Authenticate header carrying resource_metadata and, ideally, the required scope. (MCP authorization, 2026-07-28, read 5 November 2026)
Registries and directories
How many servers are in the official MCP Registry?
A full pull of GET /v0/servers with version=latest on 4 Nov 2026 returned 56,677 entries: 55,806 active and 871 deprecated. 37,977 declared at least one remote endpoint. The registry is still a preview and does not check that endpoints work. (Official MCP Registry API, GET /v0/servers, counted on 4 November 2026)
How do I publish my server to the official MCP Registry?
Use the mcp-publisher CLI from your server's project after proving the namespace: GitHub OAuth or OIDC for io.github names, DNS or HTTP verification for a domain. A pull request or a server.json added to the registry repository does not list a server. (modelcontextprotocol/registry on GitHub, read 5 November 2026)
Is the GitHub MCP Registry the same as the official registry?
No. GitHub lists 773 servers on github.com/mcp and serves them at api.mcp.github.com/v0/servers with GitHub metadata such as stars and licence. The official registry holds about 56,700 entries published by anyone with a verified namespace. (GitHub MCP Registry API, GET /v0/servers, counted on 4 November 2026; Official MCP Registry API, GET /v0/servers, observed on 4 November 2026; modelcontextprotocol/registry on GitHub, read 5 November 2026)
What happened to Smithery?
Arcade announced on 5 Aug 2026 that it acquired Smithery. The smithery.ai home page now says it is part of Arcade and that the MCP Proxy and managed identity features shut down on 31 Oct 2026. (Arcade: Smithery is now part of Arcade.dev (5 Aug 2026), read 5 November 2026; smithery.ai home page, read 5 November 2026)
How many MCP servers does Glama list?
Glama showed 115,804 servers on 4 Nov 2026, split into 45,531 remote, 43,657 local and 21,761 hybrid, and a separate list of 40,288 remote connectors. These are Glama's own counts. Its API needs a key and its data license requires attribution. (Glama MCP servers directory, counted on 4 November 2026; Glama MCP connectors (remote servers), counted on 4 November 2026)
What does it take to get into the Claude Connectors Directory?
A remote HTTPS server, OAuth 2.0 if tools act on a user account, a title and readOnlyHint or destructiveHint on every tool, documentation and privacy URLs, and a test account for reviewers. Submissions go through claude.ai/directory/manage on any paid Claude plan; local MCPB bundles are no longer accepted. (Claude: submit a connector to the directory, read 5 November 2026)
Hosting, gateways and pricing
Should I host my MCP server on Cloudflare or Vercel?
Both serve Streamable HTTP. Cloudflare gives you an OAuth authorization server library (Workers OAuth Provider v1) and portals for central control. Vercel's mcp-handler verifies tokens but needs an external authorization server, and suits teams already on Next.js. (Cloudflare changelog: Workers OAuth Provider v1 (1 Oct 2026), read 5 November 2026; Vercel: deploy MCP servers to Vercel, read 5 November 2026)
Does Vercel run an MCP server for its own platform?
Yes. Vercel MCP is at https://mcp.vercel.com with OAuth, on all plans. Since 2 Nov 2026 it accepts any client that uses a Client ID Metadata Document, without prior review. (Vercel MCP docs, read 5 November 2026; Vercel changelog: Vercel MCP supports Client ID Metadata Documents (2 Nov 2026), read 5 November 2026)
How does Zapier charge for MCP?
MCP is included in every Zapier plan and each successful tool call uses two tasks from the plan quota; failed calls do not count. Clients must support Streamable HTTP. (Zapier MCP docs, read 5 November 2026)
How does Composio charge for MCP tool calls?
Hobby is free with 100K tool calls a month (up to 20K on Composio-managed apps). Pro is 29 USD a month with 29 USD of credits and overage of 0.0003 USD per tool call; managed-app calls cost more. Prices read on 4 Nov 2026. (Composio pricing, read 5 November 2026)
What is an MCP server portal?
A Cloudflare product, generally available since 24 Sep 2026, that puts up to 80 remote MCP servers behind one endpoint, signs users in through Cloudflare Access and lets admins hide, allowlist or alias individual tools. (Cloudflare changelog: MCP server portals GA (24 Sep 2026), read 5 November 2026; Cloudflare MCP server portals docs, read 5 November 2026)
Do AI gateways front MCP servers?
Some do. Portkey's MCP Gateway and Kong's AI MCP Server handle MCP traffic. Cloudflare AI Gateway and Vercel AI Gateway front model APIs only; Cloudflare handles MCP through portals and Vercel through mcp-handler hosting. (Portkey MCP Gateway docs, read 5 November 2026; Kong AI Gateway docs, read 5 November 2026; Cloudflare MCP server portals docs, read 5 November 2026; Vercel AI Gateway pricing, read 5 November 2026; Vercel: deploy MCP servers to Vercel, read 5 November 2026)
WebMCP, A2A and other agent surfaces
What is WebMCP and can agents use it today?
WebMCP is a draft browser API, document.modelContext.registerTool(), for pages to expose tools. nekuda's FAQ (October 2026) says Chrome and Edge test it in an origin trial and Brave has it behind a flag; Firefox and Safari have none, and Gemini in Chrome and Claude for Chrome do not use WebMCP tools yet. (webmcp.com (nekuda), read 5 November 2026)
What is the difference between MCP and A2A?
MCP connects an agent to tools and data on a server. A2A connects agents to other agents through an Agent Card at /.well-known/agent-card.json and task messages over JSON-RPC, gRPC or HTTP+JSON. Under the Agentic AI Foundation, A2A and MCP are sibling projects since A2A joined on 27 Aug 2026. (A2A joins the Agentic AI Foundation (27 Aug 2026), read 5 November 2026; A2A specification, read 5 November 2026)
Where does an A2A agent card live?
At https://{server_domain}/.well-known/agent-card.json, registered as a well-known URI in section 14.3 of the A2A 1.0.0 specification. (A2A specification, read 5 November 2026)
Is agents.json still maintained?
The wild-card-ai/agents-json repository shows version 0.1.0 under MIT with 75 commits on master. The page shows no last-activity date, so treat it as an early specification. (wild-card-ai/agents-json, read 5 November 2026)
How does NLWeb relate to MCP?
Every NLWeb instance acts as an MCP server and supports a core ask method that takes a natural-language question and returns Schema.org JSON. NLWeb is Microsoft's open project, MIT licensed. (nlweb-ai/NLWeb, read 5 November 2026)
Do I need an MCP server to count as agent ready?
AgentReady.org, launched by Ora on 19 Oct 2026, requires an MCP server or a CLI, at least one, for the act layer; a public API with OpenAPI and WebMCP are SHOULDs. Ora is the publisher of that standard. (Ora: Introducing AgentReady.org (19 Oct 2026), read 5 November 2026)
Specific servers and tools
What tools does Stripe's MCP server expose?
Stripe's server at https://mcp.stripe.com exposes stripe_api_search, stripe_api_details, stripe_api_read and stripe_api_write, plus account, Atlas, analytics, Treasury and docs tools. Some write actions need human confirmation in the Dashboard. (Stripe MCP docs, observed on 4 November 2026)
Does Shopify still serve Storefront MCP at /api/mcp?
The catalog and cart tools on https://{shop}/api/mcp were removed; the replacement endpoint is https://{shop}/api/ucp/mcp, and every request should carry an agent profile. (Shopify Storefront MCP docs, read 5 November 2026)
How do I connect to the GitHub MCP server?
Use the remote at https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/ with OAuth or a PAT as a bearer token, or run ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server locally. --read-only disables write tools even if you request them by name. (github/github-mcp-server, read 5 November 2026)
How good are the tool descriptions in public MCP servers?
Arcade's ToolBench rescan of more than 90,000 open-source servers (30 Sep 2026) found 260 servers (0.28 percent) earned an A, descriptions averaged 57 out of 100, and seven in ten servers give no useful guidance when a call fails. This is Arcade's own research. (Arcade: ToolBench rescan, 90,000 MCP servers (30 Sep 2026), read 5 November 2026)
Does Ora have an MCP server?
Ora publishes /.well-known/mcp.json naming https://ora.ai/api/mcp over Streamable HTTP with 18 tools, including scan_domain, get_score and run_journey. (ora.ai/.well-known/mcp.json, observed on 4 November 2026)
This directory
Does this directory run its own MCP server?
Yes, a read-only one. The server at /mcp offers five read-only tools over the directory rows and the census, and the same data is available through a REST API and an NLWeb ask endpoint. It never calls another company's server. It is not a row in the directory, which lists companies and not this publication. (agentmcpdirectory.com/developers, read 5 November 2026)
How does this directory verify an MCP server?
Each claimed endpoint is checked by a connector that only calls read-only methods (server/discover or initialize, tools/list, resources/list, prompts/list) and logs the time and tool list. Entries that cannot be verified say why and do not count as having an MCP server. In the 4 November 2026 run the connector sent initialize; server/discover joins its allowlist from the next run. (agentmcpdirectory.com/method, read 5 November 2026)