MCP Python SDK

MCP Python SDK v2 Stable Release

This is v2.0.0, the stable v2 release of the MCP Python SDK. It supports the 2026-07-28 revision of the Model Context Protocol and serves every earlier revision from the same server. pip install mcp now installs 2.x.

pip install "mcp[cli]"
# or
uv add "mcp[cli]"

Documentation Rewrite

The documentation has the full tutorial and API reference. Coming from v1? What's new in v2 is the tour of what changed and why, and the migration guide lists every breaking change with before-and-after code.

V1 Maintenance mode

v1.x is in maintenance mode and will only receive security fixes from now on The 1.x line lives on the v1.x branch, continues to receive critical bug fixes and security patches, and is documented at https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/v1/. If your project is not ready to migrate, keep a <2 upper bound on your requirement (for example mcp>=1.28,<2).

Highlights

One SDK, both protocol eras

v2 speaks the 2026-07-28 revision (stateless requests with no handshake, server/discover, subscriptions/listen, multi-round-trip requests) and still serves every 2025-era client from the same MCPServer, over Streamable HTTP and stdio, with nothing to configure. Client(target) negotiates the version automatically.

FastMCP is now MCPServer, and there is a first-class Client

The decorator API is unchanged; the low-level Server is rebuilt around a shared dispatcher engine, and one Client object replaces v1's transport-plus-ClientSession-plus-initialize() layering. It connects to a URL, a stdio subprocess, a custom transport, or straight to a server object in memory for tests.

Multi-round-trip requests and resolver dependency injection

At 2026-07-28 the server can no longer call the client, so tools return the question instead. A Resolve(fn) parameter is filled by your function invisibly to the model and can put a question to the user; one tool body serves both eras.

Extension APIs, OpenTelemetry, and a standalone types package

Servers and clients compose protocol extensions through pluggable extension APIs (MCP Apps built in); OpenTelemetry tracing ships on by default; every protocol type is its own package, mcp-types (imported as mcp_types), published in lock-step with mcp.

Hardened stdio and auth

stdio servers keep handler subprocesses and stray prints off the wire, and stdout is diverted to stderr while serving. OAuth adds RFC 9207 issuer validation, the SEP-990 identity-assertion flow, and the client-credentials extension.

Coming from a v2 pre-release

Since the last release candidate: the per-version wire packages are private (mcp_types._v), mcp.types is a permanent alias for mcp_types, the auth registration request model is split from the registered-client record, cancelled requests are no longer answered, and log notifications are gated on the per-request log-level opt-in at 2026-07-28. Since the betas: Client(cache=False) is now cache=None with CacheConfig() the default; Context.client_id, RFC7523OAuthClientProvider, and OAuthClientProvider(timeout=) are removed; the client-credentials providers take scope=; message_handler receives notifications and exceptions only; FileResource(is_binary=) becomes encoding; MCP_ env vars are gone with pydantic-settings; Streamable HTTP servers reject bodies over 4 MiB with HTTP 413. The migration guide covers all of it.

Known gaps

The tasks extension (SEP-2663) is not part of this release. On the client, the DPoP proof binding (SEP-1932) and the workload-identity jwt-bearer grant are not implemented; both are additive and can land in 2.x.

Feedback

Something r

MCP Python SDK

<div align="center">

<strong>Python implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP)</strong>

[![PyPI][pypi-badge]][pypi-url]

[![MIT licensed][mit-badge]][mit-url]

[![Python Version][python-badge]][python-url]

[![Documentation][docs-badge]][docs-url]

[![Protocol][protocol-badge]][protocol-url]

[![Specification][spec-badge]][spec-url]

</div>

[!NOTE]

This is v2 of the MCP Python SDK, the current stable release line. It is a major rework of the SDK, both to support the 2026-07-28 MCP specification (and every earlier revision) and to fix long-standing architectural issues. Coming from v1? See What's new in v2 for the tour of what changed and the migration guide for every breaking change.

Not ready to migrate? v1.x lives on the v1.x branch, continues to receive critical bug fixes and security patches, and is documented at <https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/v1/>. Since pip install mcp now installs 2.x, keep a <2 upper bound on your requirement (for example mcp>=1.28,<2) until you've migrated.

Something rough, confusing, or broken? Open an issue or find us in #python-sdk-dev on the MCP Contributors Discord.

Documentation

The documentation lives at <https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/>.

It has a Get started guide, What's new in v2, the API reference, and the migration guide.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol lets you build servers that expose data and functionality to LLM applications in a secure, standardized way. Think of it like a web API, but designed for LLM interactions. With this SDK you can:

• Build MCP servers that expose tools, resources, and prompts to any MCP host
• Build MCP clients that connect to any MCP server
• Speak every standard transport: stdio, Streamable HTTP, and SSE

Requirements

Python 3.10+.

Installation

uv add "mcp[cli]"      # or: pip install "mcp[cli]"

The cli extra adds the mcp command-line tool (mcp dev, mcp run, mcp install) on top of the SDK; install plain mcp if you don't need it. For one-off commands, uv run --with "mcp[cli]" mcp ... works without a project.

A server in 15 lines

Create a server.py:

<!-- snippet-source docs_src/index/tutorial001.py -->

from mcp.server import MCPServer

mcp = MCPServer("Demo")


@mcp.tool()
def add(a: int, b: int) -> int:
    """Add two numbers."""
    return a + b


@mcp.resource("greeting://{name}")
def greeting(name: str) -> str:
    """Greet someone by name."""
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

_Full example: docs_src/index/tutorial001.py_

<!-- /snippet-source -->

That's a complete MCP server: one tool, one templated resource. Open it in the MCP Inspector:

uv run mcp dev server.py

Call add with a=1, b=2 and you get 3 back.

Notice what you did not write: no JSON Schema (a: int, b: int _is_ the schema), no request parsing, no validation code, no protocol handling. Two type-hinted Python functions and a docstring.

Get started takes it from here.

A client in 10 lines

The same package is a full MCP client. Client connects to a URL, a stdio subprocess, a custom transport, or (for tests) straight to a server object in memory with no transport at all:

import asyncio

from mcp import Client

from server import mcp


async def main() -> None:
    async with Client(mcp) as client:
        result = await client.call_tool("add", {"a": 1, "b": 2})
        print(result.structured_content)  # {'result': 3}


asyncio.run(main())

Swap mcp for "http://localhost:8000/mcp" and the exact same code talks to a remote server.

Contributing

We are passionate about supporting contributors of all levels of experience and would love to see you get involved in the project. See the contributing guide to get started.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

[pypi-badge]: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/mcp.svg

[pypi-url]: https://pypi.org/project/mcp/

[mit-badge]: https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/mcp.svg

[mit-url]: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/blob/main/LICENSE

[python-badge]: https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/mcp.svg

[python-url]: https://www.python.org/downloads/

[docs-badge]: https://img.shields.io/badge/docs-python--sdk-blue.svg

[docs-url]: https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/

[protocol-badge]: https://img.shields.io/badge/protocol-modelcontextprotocol.io-blue.svg

[protocol-url]: https://modelcontextprotocol.io

[spec-badge]: https://img.shields.io/badge/spec-spec.modelcontextprotocol.io-blue.svg

[spec-url]: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/latest