news
MCP goes stateless, and starts a twelve-month clock
The Model Context Protocol's 2026-07-28 specification removes the session handshake and deprecates several things you have probably already built on.
big-deal
What changed
The Model Context Protocol published its 2026-07-28 specification on 28 July. The protocol core is now stateless: the initialize handshake and the Mcp-Session-Id header are gone, and each request carries its own protocol version, client identity and capabilities. Dynamic Client Registration is deprecated in favour of Client ID Metadata Documents. Roots, Sampling and Logging are deprecated with a twelve-month minimum support window.
Why you should care
If you have written an MCP server, you now have a year to move it, and a stateless core means it can sit behind an ordinary load balancer instead of sticky sessions.