Model Context Protocol Registry

Canonical version: Model Context Protocol Registry.

The Model Context Protocol Registry is the official, community-driven registry service for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, essentially an app store for MCP servers. It gives MCP clients a curated, queryable list of available servers instead of everyone managing connections by hand. The reference instance runs at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io.

How it works

• A server is described by a server.json file; you publish it with a CLI
• Publisher identity is verified via GitHub OAuth, GitHub OIDC (for Actions), or DNS / HTTP domain-ownership checks
• Namespaces encode ownership: io.github.<user>/<name> (GitHub auth) or me.<domain>/<name> (domain proof)
• It is meant to be a base layer: other registries and marketplaces build on top of it and mirror its data (the registry specification it defines is what those downstream catalogs respect)

Discovery and governance

A registry is not only for discovery. It is also a control point for enforcing rules. An organization can point a client at a specific registry and restrict usage to the servers it lists. For example, GitHub Copilot can be pointed at an MCP registry to allowlist MCP servers, so developers can only use approved ones. Downstream platforms that respect the registry specification include Azure API Center and the MCP Gateway Registry.

Status

• Launched in preview September 2025; entered an API freeze (v0.1) in October 2025 for stability ahead of GA
• Built in Go with PostgreSQL; open source
• Governed by a Registry Working Group with members from PulseMCP, Stacklok, TeamSpark, and Ravenmail

References

• https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry
• https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/tree/main/docs
• https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/

Related

• Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• Azure API Center
• MCP Gateway Registry
• Docker MCP Catalog
• GitHub Copilot
• AI Agents
• Agentic Resource Discovery Specification (ARD)

About Sébastien

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