Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest (and inspired mcp-explorer and datasette-mcp)
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) released a new stateless specification on July 28, 2026, simplifying client‑server interactions to a single HTTP request. The author built three implementations and created the mcp‑explorer CLI tool to probe MCP servers without installation. The stateless design reduces complexity and improves scalability compared to the earlier stateful version.
- ▪The updated MCP specification, named 2026-07-28, replaces the two‑request flow of the legacy stateful protocol with a single request format.
- ▪Stateless MCP lowers implementation overhead, eliminating the need for server‑side session tracking and easing scaling of web applications.
- ▪The author released mcp‑explorer, a Python CLI that can list, inspect, and call tools on MCP servers such as the agentic‑mermaid.dev demo.
- ▪MCP was originally introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 and saw renewed interest after the 2026 revision.
- ▪The new protocol is positioned as more audit‑friendly and suitable for smaller models running on laptops.
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| Original publisher | Simon Willison's Weblog |
| Canonical URL | https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/31/stateless-mcp/#atom-everything |
| Publication time | 2026-07-31T23:13:22+00:00 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-31T23:25:51.417Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-31T23:25:51.417Z |
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| Cluster | FijO30tE1zkn · 1 stories |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest (and inspired mcp-explorer and datasette-mcp) 31st July 2026 Tuesday was Stateless MCP day—the rollout of MCP 2.0, or the 2026-07-28 Model Context Protocol specification to use the more formal but less memorable name. This is the most significant change to the MCP spec since it first launched, and has also served to reignite my personal interest in the protocol. For background: MCP is the Model Context Protocol, which describes a standard way to expose new tools to LLM-powered agent frameworks.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Simon Willison's Weblog.
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