Model Context Protocol goes stateless in its biggest update since launch

10:00 AM PT · July 30, 2026

The Model Context Protocol’s governing specification moved to a new version, 2026-07-28, this week, described by its maintainers as the biggest change since the protocol launched, and Anthropic said it is bringing support to Claude. The core shift replaces MCP’s original stateful, bidirectional connection model with a stateless request and response design, letting developers deploy MCP servers on serverless and edge infrastructure rather than requiring a persistent connection to stay open. Authorization was reworked to align with standard OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect deployments, so MCP servers can connect to enterprise identity systems such as Entra or Okta without custom workarounds, and MCP Apps and Tasks, previously add on features, now ship as a formal, versioned extensions framework giving developers a defined path to add capabilities like interactive interfaces or long running jobs without altering the core protocol. A new mechanism called Multi Round Trip Requests replaces the old approach of holding a connection open while waiting on user input, instead letting a server return an input required response that a client can retry once it has an answer. Anthropic noted that MCP has now passed 400 million monthly SDK downloads, a fourfold increase over the past year, underscoring how quickly the protocol, which Anthropic originally created to standardize how AI models connect to external tools and data, has become a default layer of infrastructure across the industry.