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Support for server.json (the Official MCP Registry format) #922
Description
Hey, all, I'm Rado and I'm one of the maintainers of the MCP Registry 👋
Some of you are probably already aware of this, but we’ve been working on a standardised JSON-based format for describing MCP servers (including metadata, parameters, environment variables, startup commands, etc.) which we usually refer to as the "server.json" format. The flow is MCP authors use it to describe their server and then they publish it to the registry. It was brought up a few times that it would be handy if there's a tool that can help MCP authors test and play around with their server.json before actually publishing it.
The goal of this issue is to explore whether this falls under the roadmap for Inspector and if you would be interested in supporting the format.
Some of the things that this could enable are:
- Schema validation - Ensure that a server definition conforms to the registry's schema.
- Server startup - Allow authors/developers to launch an MCP server directly from a registry-compliant definition.
- Value verification - Help users confirm that the values they’ve entered are correct (e.g., URLs resolve, environment variable are working as expected when set, paths are valid, etc.).
- Improved dev experience - Users authoring registry entries could immediately test them in Inspector without wiring things up manually.
Overall supporting the registry format should help align the MCP ecosystem but also give Inspector users convenient ways to verify MCP server configurations before publishing them.
If this sounds interesting, happy to chat about how we can help move this forward 😃
Cheers and thanks again for the great work on Inspector 🙌
cc: @tadasant @toby @domdomegg
Activity
BobDickinson commentedon Nov 19, 2025
I am a big fan of this idea. I have already implemented most of this in this repo: https://github.com/TeamSparkAI/mcp-registry (implemented in TypeScript/Node).
There is a live server.json tester at: https://registry.teamspark.ai/tester - you can paste in a server.json, see schema errors and linter issues, see a rendered server config UX based on your server.json that you can interact with, and inspect the mcpServer config generated by the UX.
I've broken out the validator and the UX into separate packages (that I use in my own apps for configuration of servers from the registry).
I'd be happy to contribute to this effort with some guidance from the team (including donating some/all of my existing code if it makes sense).
Add full MCP 2025-11-25 protocol coverage to v2_ux.md
Add full MCP 2025-11-25 protocol coverage to v2_ux.md
Add full MCP 2025-11-25 protocol coverage to v2_ux.md
cliffhall commentedon Aug 1, 2026
Triage: Priority = Medium
Scored 6/16 with the priority rubric added to
AGENTS.mdin #1891, as part of the backlog triage in #1872. Added to project board #28 with Status Incoming — meaning filed and scored but not yet approved for work. A maintainer decides whether it moves to Todo.Related issues. These look connected and may be worth reading together:
server.jsonand ServerCard ingestion — this may be subsumed by itScores are a starting point, not a verdict — the rubric is meant to be overruled when it's plainly wrong, provided the reason is written down.
cliffhall commentedon Aug 12, 2026
We have support for this now.