r-ms/mcp-server-standard

MCP Server Standard is a written checklist for building production-ready MCP servers, the kind of backend that lets AI coding assistants and agents call outside tools and data. MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. Rather than a step-by-step tutorial, this project is a normative list of requirements covering how a server should handle connections, logins, tool design, response size limits, error messages, logging, security, deployment, and testing. The author built several MCP servers for real production use, including an analytics tool for AI coding assistants and a local server that works with AWS credentials. Working on these separately, they kept arriving at the same design decisions, which is what convinced them to write those decisions down as a shared standard others could reuse. The core recommendation is to use a specific type of remote connection with login through a direct link, keep responses in a compact, token efficient format with a size limit so they do not overwhelm the AI model, log every call with sensitive details hidden, and treat expected errors as normal responses instead of connection failures. Deployments should only roll out once a health check confirms the new version is working. A key idea running through the standard is separating what a server must do from which specific tool or vendor it uses to do it. Some requirements are strict musts, like having a structured log for every call, while others are recommended defaults, like which specific logging or login service to use, and teams are free to swap those out if they have a good reason. The project distinguishes between two types of servers: ones shared across many users over a network, which need stronger login and access control, and personal ones that run locally on a single machine and can rely on existing local credentials. Each requirement in the standard has a stable reference number so teams can point to it during code reviews. The project is released under the CC BY 4.0 license, meaning it can be used and adapted freely as long as credit is given.