Contributor Communication

This document explains how to communicate and collaborate within the Model Context Protocol (MCP) project.

​

Communication Channels

All communication is governed by our Code of Conduct. We expect respectful, professional, and inclusive interactions across all channels.

​

Discord

The MCP Contributor Discord is for real-time contributor discussion and collaboration. The server is designed for MCP contributors and is not intended for general MCP support.

​

Public Channels (Default)

Purpose: Open community engagement, collaborative development, and transparent project coordination. Primary use cases:

• SDK and tooling development (e.g., #typescript-sdk-dev, #inspector-dev)
• Working Group and Interest Group discussions (e.g., #auth-wg, #security-ig)
• Community onboarding and contribution guidance
• Community feedback and collaborative brainstorming
• Public office hours and maintainer availability

Avoid:

• MCP user support - Read official documentation and use GitHub Discussions for questions
• Service or product marketing - Keep discussions vendor-neutral; mentions of brands are discouraged except as examples relevant to the specification

​

Private Channels (Exceptions)

Purpose: Confidential coordination and sensitive matters. Access is restricted to designated maintainers. Criteria for private use:

• Security incidents (CVEs, protocol vulnerabilities)
• People matters (maintainer discussions, code of conduct issues)
• Coordination requiring immediate or focused response with a limited audience
• Some channels are read-only for maintainer decision-making

Transparency requirements:

• All technical and governance decisions affecting the community must be documented in GitHub Discussions and/or Issues, labeled with notes
• Private channels are temporary “incident rooms,” not for routine development
• Some matters related to individual contributors may remain private when appropriate

Any significant discussion on Discord that leads to a potential decision or proposal must be moved to GitHub Discussion or Issue for a persistent, searchable record.

​

GitHub Discussions

Use for structured, long-form discussion and debate on project direction. When to use:

• Project roadmap planning and milestone discussions
• Announcements and release communications
• Community polls and consensus-building
• Feature requests with context and rationale
• If a repository doesn’t have Discussions enabled, use GitHub Issues instead

​

GitHub Issues

Use for bug reports and actionable development tasks. Feature requests should go to GitHub Discussions. When to use:

• Bug reports with reproducible steps
• Documentation improvements with specific scope
• CI/CD problems and infrastructure issues
• Release tasks and milestone tracking

Note: SEP proposals are submitted as pull requests to the seps/ directory, not as GitHub Issues. See the SEP Guidelines.

​

Security Issues

Do not post security issues publicly.

1. Use the private security reporting process in SECURITY.md
2. Contact Lead or Core Maintainers directly
3. Follow responsible disclosure guidelines

​

Decision Records

All MCP decisions are documented in public channels: When documenting decisions, we retain as much context as possible:

• Decision makers
• Background context and motivation
• Options considered
• Rationale for chosen approach
• Implementation steps