Model Context Protocol receives major update on its first anniversary

"The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is receiving a major update exactly one year after its launch. Anthropic, the developer of the open protocol, is adding functionality for more complex workflows and simplifying authorization flows. The update offers support for task-based workflows, URL-based client registration, and sampling with tools. Anthropic's MCP specification was launched at the end of 2024. The AI industry quickly embraced the protocol."

"Task-based workflows as an experimental feature The most important addition is support for task-based workflows. This feature allows tracking long-running operations and retrieving their results for up to a server-determined duration after creation. Tasks support different statuses: working, input_required, completed, failed, and canceled. Clients can query the status of ongoing work at any time. The functionality is particularly useful for scenarios such as healthcare data analysis with hundreds of thousands of data points,"

"Simplified authorization flows Anthropic's update also addresses an important pain point: Dynamic Client Registration (DCR). This functionality was necessary because there are an infinite number of MCP clients and servers, making standard client pre-registration impractical. However, DCR required an Authorization Server that allows clients to register themselves via a public API. The new release introduces URL-based client registration via OAuth Client ID Metadata Documents as a more"

Anthropic expanded the Model Context Protocol to support more complex workflows and simplify authorization flows. The MCP now offers experimental task-based workflows for tracking long-running operations and retrieving results for a server-determined duration. Tasks report statuses including working, input_required, completed, failed, and canceled, and clients can query task status at any time. The task feature targets healthcare data analysis, enterprise automation platforms, and code migration tools that run for minutes or hours. The release introduces URL-based client registration via OAuth Client ID Metadata Documents as an alternative to Dynamic Client Registration. The changes reflect user feedback from production MCP deployments.

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