# MCP Server Engineering > MCP server engineering guidance. Use when creating, updating, refactoring, testing, or reviewing Model Context Protocol servers, tools, resources, prompts, capability discovery, stdio transport, Streamable HTTP, or legacy HTTP+SSE compatibility. Do not use merely to operate an existing MCP server; use the applicable provider or service skill instead. - Skill: `nledford/mcp-server-engineering` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nledford/mcp-server-engineering` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nledford/mcp-server-engineering/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Product & Planning - Author: nledford (https://skillmd.com/u/nledford) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nledford/mcp-server-engineering --- # MCP Server Engineering Use this skill to build or change an MCP server without tying the design to one language, SDK, host, or package. Inspect the target repository, dependency policy, known clients, and current official MCP documentation before selecting implementation details. ## Load the right detail Keep this file for activation, ownership, project discovery, implementation, and non-negotiable safety rules. Load a directly linked reference when its subject is in scope: | Need | Load | | --- | --- | | A dated wire rule, lifecycle, transport, authorization, MRTR, elicitation, or extension-negotiation decision | [Protocol baseline — 2026-07-28](references/protocol-2026-07-28.md) | | SDK choice, MCP Apps, MCPB packaging, host policy, or a large fixed action surface | [SDK, extension, and package baseline](references/sdk-selection.md) | The dated core specification governs core MCP. SDK releases, extension releases, packages, registry rules, and host policy do not silently change that contract. ## Boundaries and required handoffs - This skill owns MCP-facing contracts, capability composition, and server workflow. The repository's language skill owns SDK APIs, package setup, types, runtime mechanics, and test commands. - Load [`api-design`](../api-design/SKILL.md) for material public compatibility, schema, error-contract, or versioning decisions. - Route trust-boundary design—users, principals, tenants, assets, data flows, abuse cases, and residual risk—to [`threat-modeling`](../threat-modeling/SKILL.md). Load [`security-review`](../security-review/SKILL.md) and [`security-review-evidence`](../security-review-evidence/SKILL.md) for implemented controls involving identity, secrets, external input, files, commands, network access, remote effects, or sensitive data. - Load [`dependency-supply-chain-review`](../dependency-supply-chain-review/SKILL.md) before adding or changing an SDK, transport library, generated code, package, lockfile, install script, bundle runtime, or registry publication. - Do not install, execute, configure, operate, or mutate data through an existing server merely to develop its guidance or implementation unless that is separately authorized. ## Pre-implementation brief Write this compact brief before selecting an SDK or exposing a capability: 1. **Target:** integration and deployment shape; intended users, principals, tenants, and trust boundaries. 2. **Effects:** local and remote effects, the upstream systems involved, and whose authorization governs each effect. 3. **Action surface:** qualitative pressure for a small curated surface versus a genuinely large fixed surface; do not use a numeric tool-count threshold. 4. **Interaction:** text, structured input, elicitation, and rich-UI needs. 5. **Compatibility:** intended clients, core revisions, separately negotiated extensions, and expected fallbacks. Treat this as design input, not a permission grant. Revisit it when a new principal, upstream, side effect, or host is introduced. ## Core design rules ### Primitives and contracts - A **tool** is a named action with bounded schema-defined input and, when useful, structured output. A **resource** is retrievable context at a stable URI. A **prompt** is an explicit user-selected reusable message template; it is not hidden authority or a system-prompt-injection channel. - Treat tool/resource/prompt arguments, client metadata, upstream data, and returned embedded content as untrusted. Canonicalize before authorization when representation ambiguity could bypass policy. - Use a stable, specific name and description for each exposed primitive. State selection conditions, preconditions, effects, retry behavior, limits, and result meaning. Keep input objects closed where practical, validate schema and domain invariants server-side, and use opaque identifiers instead of internal paths or implementation objects. - Return concise text for model use and structured content for machine use; validate declared structured output before returning it. Paginate or summarize large results rather than flooding context. - Do not mirror credentials, tokens, API keys, personal data, or similarly sensitive schema fields into HTTP headers; intermediaries and logs commonly expose them. Keep prompt arguments and embedded resource content transparent, validated, and unable to smuggle authority or bypass host policy. - Separate protocol/transport adapters from authorization-aware application operations and underlying infrastructure. Registration must be explicit and deterministic, not dependent on import order or transient connection state. - Keep resources canonical, authorization-checked, and free of credentials. File-backed access needs a defined containment and symlink policy; route its race-resistant implementation and review to `security-review`. ### Capability and compatibility discipline - Discover the selected core revision and declared client/server capabilities before use. Advertise only versions, primitives, notifications, subscriptions, extensions, and optional interactions that are implemented and tested. - Choose optional behavior from declared capabilities, negotiated extensions, and the selected revision—not a client product name or version label. Never send an unsupported optional interaction. - When an optional capability is absent, preserve semantics with a useful fallback where feasible; otherwise return the selected revision's applicable missing- or unsupported-capability error. Fallbacks are interoperability guidance, not universal protocol law. - Treat changes to names, descriptions, schemas, URIs, capability declarations, error semantics, authorization scope, defaults, effects, transport, and supported revisions as externally observable contracts. Prefer additive optional changes, a new narrow primitive, or an explicit migration over an in-place break. ### Effects, errors, and cache safety - Authorize every operation and referenced object at execution time. A tool name, client claim, connection, opaque handle, or host approval is not proof of authorization. - Make reads side-effect free apart from bounded telemetry and caching. For a mutation, state idempotency and reconciliation behavior; bind idempotency records to the authenticated principal, operation, and relevant request digest. Provide preview/validate before high-impact apply where useful. - Apply least-privilege credentials, rate limits, and resource budgets to every underlying system. Command-backed actions use a fixed executable allowlist and structured arguments without shell interpolation; constrain process environment, working directory, filesystem/network access, runtime, and privileges. Schema-valid input never makes an arbitrary command safe. - Require explicit host/user approval for sensitive actions and recheck server-side authorization. Neither approval nor tool availability replaces the other control. - Map malformed protocol requests and unknown methods to protocol errors; map recoverable execution outcomes to safe, actionable operation errors. Do not leak stack traces, private paths, tokens, SQL, or raw upstream responses. - Cache only when the selected revision permits it. Partition private data by the authorization context, never use a cache label as access control, and do not cache multi-round input-required results or retries carrying returned state/input responses. ### MRTR state safety Multi-round interactions need opaque state that is safe when a client returns it. Treat returned state as attacker-controlled; integrity-protect state that affects authorization, access, or logic; bind it to the authenticated principal, short expiry, method, and security-relevant request digest; and verify every binding on retry. For a replayable write or unsafe effect, atomically consume a server-side nonce/state identifier. Test tampering, wrong-principal reuse, expiry, request mismatch, and replay. The dated MRTR and elicitation lifecycle is in the [protocol baseline](references/protocol-2026-07-28.md#mrtr-and-elicitation). ### Transport and runtime - Use stdio for a client-launched local child process. Send only newline-delimited UTF-8 JSON-RPC on stdout; send sanitized diagnostics to stderr; do not rely on the launcher’s working directory or full shell environment. - Use the selected current remote transport for independently deployed services. Keep one request's transport framing, authentication middleware, and startup outside domain operations; bound size, time, concurrency, cancellation, and cleanup. Validate Origin and use HTTPS outside explicitly bounded local development. - Validate protocol metadata and any mirrored transport metadata, rejecting disagreement rather than silently choosing one. Keep authentication at the service boundary and repeat authorization for every operation/object. - For remote upstream access, use least-privilege credentials issued for that upstream; never pass an MCP-client bearer token through to an upstream service. Defend URL-fetching and metadata discovery against SSRF, redirects, rebinding, and disallowed network targets according to deployment policy. ## Implementation workflow 1. **Inventory and brief.** Inspect repository conventions, existing discovery output, registrations, handlers, schemas, tests, client fixtures, deployment, and the pre-implementation brief. Load the dated protocol reference and relevant SDK/extension reference before choosing their behaviors. 2. **Choose the smallest coherent surface.** Select one transport and a narrow primitive. Define its authorization boundary, schemas, outputs, effects, error categories, limits, and compatibility/fallback behavior before adding dependencies. 3. **Implement thin adapters.** Decode/validate, authorize, invoke a transport-independent operation, map results, and clean up/cancel bounded work. Keep secrets out of source, schemas, descriptions, URIs, outputs, logs, fixtures, screenshots, and traces. 4. **Declare and compose deliberately.** Synchronize discovery, capability declarations, schemas, list ordering, notifications, documentation, and supported revisions. Treat core, extensions, packages, and host policy as separate decisions below. 5. **Compare and prove.** Capture a before/after contract for updates and refactors. Test every advertised revision, transport, capability, and intended host; report skipped coverage and sanitized residual risk. ## Core, extension, package, and vendor boundaries - **Core MCP:** follows the selected dated specification. - **MCP Apps:** an official optional extension, independently versioned and host-dependent. It requires extension negotiation and does not make UI support a core requirement. - **MCPB:** portable MCP-project packaging outside core MCP. Its manifest, loader, and CLI behavior are package concerns, not wire-protocol rules. - **SDKs:** Apps SDK and MCPB CLI mechanics are package-specific; select and validate them from target-repository evidence, never a fixed version here. - **Vendors/hosts:** directory listings, callback URLs, screenshots, host limits, templates, and comparable requirements are vendor/host policy, not core MCP. - **Apps delivery:** obtain current extension and intended-host evidence; negotiate the extension; retain meaningful text/structured fallbacks; include frontend/JavaScript/CSS/UX/security companion skills as their triggers apply; and test the intended host. Load the [SDK, extension, and package baseline](references/sdk-selection.md#official-extensions-packages-and-hosts). ## Validation - Schema-check inputs and declared outputs; assert unique names, stable URIs, valid prompt arguments, bounded inputs, and deterministic unchanged lists. - Test success, malformed/boundary input, authorization denial, missing objects, upstream failure, timeout, cancellation, partial failure, redaction, idempotent retry, and reconciliation as applicable. - Exercise discovery, list, invoke/read/get, unknown names/URIs, pagination, transport metadata disagreement, selected cache behavior, and every declared capability. Confirm unsupported interactions are neither advertised nor sent. - For stdio, prove clean stdout, stderr diagnostics, framing, unexpected working directory, missing configuration, and shutdown. For remote deployment, prove authentication, Origin policy, request limits, concurrent clients, cancellation, and proxy behavior as applicable. - Use a protocol-aware inspector first, then the intended host. Confirm only implemented capabilities appear, errors are actionable and sanitized, and no hidden connection-local assumption survives restart. ## Explicit exclusions Do not treat any of these as current core MCP guidance: - pre-2026 session, initialization-handshake, or independent server-request examples; `logging/setLevel`; or new Roots, Sampling, or Logging adoption; - a remote scaffold from official documentation as production-ready security code, or stale `2025-11-25`/`2026-03` ledgers as current authority; - a directory character limit, vendor callback/auth/screenshot/payload/CIDR policy, or a Cloudflare scaffold as MCP law; - “instructions as system prompt injection” framing; - fixed SDK, framework, or package versions; Apps SDK mechanics as core MCP; or MCPB manifest/CLI behavior as core MCP; - a fixed numeric tool-count threshold, an arbitrary command/endpoint/payload dispatcher, lexical path resolution as proof of symlink-safe containment, or large external code blocks copied verbatim. ## Completion evidence Report changed MCP contracts and their compatibility class; tested revisions, transports, capabilities, and intended hosts; schema/unit/integration/inspector results; the baseline or fixtures compared; skipped checks; and sanitized security, migration, and interoperability risk. ## Zod Adapter Routing Zod is only a resolved TypeScript SDK or Standard Schema adapter; load [`zod-engineering`](../zod-engineering/SKILL.md) for mechanics. MCP JSON Schema dialect, capabilities, authorization, and conformance remain authoritative; test malformed inputs and schema bridges.