TopolearnIt is how servers are discovered and how you make yours installable by others.
The MCP Registry is the official, community-run catalog of publicly available MCP servers. It is in preview, so its data and API may still change.
It stores metadata, not code. Each entry is a server.json file that says:
- a unique name in reverse-domain style, such as
io.github.ana/notes, - where the server lives: a package on npm, PyPI, NuGet, Docker/OCI or similar, or a remote URL,
- how to run it: transport, arguments, required environment variables (marked secret where relevant).
Ownership is verified. With GitHub login your names must start with io.github.<your-username>/; with your own domain you prove you control it via DNS. For a PyPI package, the registry checks that your package README contains the line mcp-name: <server name> (it may be hidden in an HTML comment).
Publishing uses the official mcp-publisher command-line tool: publish your package to its normal registry first, then mcp-publisher init creates a server.json template, you log in, and mcp-publisher publish uploads it.
The registry is mainly consumed by aggregators: marketplaces and host apps that pull from it, add curation and ratings, and show you servers to install. It does not host private servers; companies can run their own registry using the same open API.
Being listed is not a security review. Check who publishes a server and what access it asks for before installing it.
Example
{
"$schema": "https://static.modelcontextprotocol.io/schemas/2025-12-11/server.schema.json",
"name": "io.github.ana/notes",
"description": "Search and read team notes.",
"version": "1.2.0",
"packages": [
{
"registryType": "pypi",
"identifier": "ana-notes-mcp",
"version": "1.2.0",
"transport": { "type": "stdio" },
"environmentVariables": [
{ "name": "NOTES_API_KEY", "isRequired": true, "isSecret": true }
]
}
]
}Remember
- The registry stores server.json metadata, not code
- Names are namespaced and ownership is verified
- Publish with mcp-publisher init / publish
- Listed does not mean audited: check the publisher