Model Context Protocol 2026-07-28: Release Candidate Introduces Stateless Core

ArticleDavid Soria Parra, Den DelimarskyAnnouncement

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) team has published the 2026-07-28 release candidate, marking its largest protocol overhaul to date. The core moves to a stateless HTTP model, eliminating connection handshakes and session headers. The update also formalises an extensions ecosystem featuring MCP Apps and Tasks, alongside OAuth and OpenID Connect security hardening.

Key points

  1. Stateless protocol core: The initialize/initialized handshake and Mcp-Session-Id are removed; requests are self-contained with client metadata in _meta and can run behind standard load balancers.
  2. Application state via explicit handles: State is no longer managed via transport metadata, but through explicit handles passed by the model across tool calls.
  3. Restructured server-to-client requests: Mid-call prompts no longer require long-lived SSE streams, using an InputRequiredResult retry pattern instead.
  4. First-class extensions and MCP Apps: Extensions receive formal reverse-DNS versioning; MCP Apps bring sandboxed server-rendered HTML UIs, while Tasks transitions to an extension.
  5. Deprecations and schema upgrades: Roots, Sampling, and Logging are deprecated under a formal 12-month lifecycle policy; tools gain full JSON Schema 2020-12 support.
  6. Operational improvements: Standardised W3C Trace Context propagation, HTTP-style caching headers (ttlMs, cacheScope), and mandatory RFC 9207 iss parameter checks for OAuth security.

Why it matters

Eliminating sticky sessions and transport-level state drastically reduces operational overhead for hosting remote MCP servers on ordinary HTTP infrastructure. While the transition introduces breaking changes requiring code updates, it establishes clear enterprise-ready deployment and observability standards.

Analysis

The shift to a stateless protocol layer brings MCP much closer to conventional REST and microservice architectures. By formalising routing headers, OpenTelemetry distributed tracing, and an Extensions Track, the protocol matures from an experimental LLM interface into a stable, scalable standard for production agentic ecosystems.

Mentioned links

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Summary generated by AI (Gemini 3.8 Flash, 27 September 2026). It may contain errors – the original source is authoritative.

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