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Copilot AI commented Jan 8, 2026

The MCP Gateway specification incorrectly implied support for direct command execution (stdio+command without containerization). This creates ambiguity about supported transport mechanisms.

Changes

Specification Updates (W3C style)

  • Abstract & Purpose: Explicitly state only containerized stdio and HTTP servers are supported
  • Section 3.2 Transport Support: Changed "stdio" to "stdio (containerized)" and added Section 3.2.1 documenting containerization rationale (isolation, reproducibility, versioning, portability)
  • Section 4.1.2 Configuration Fields: Removed command and args fields, made container required for stdio servers with explicit note that command field is NOT supported
  • Section 6.1 Server Isolation: Removed "Process and Container Isolation", now only "Container Isolation"
  • Appendix A Examples: Updated all configurations to use container field instead of command field
  • Appendix C Security: Changed "Process Security" to "Container Security" with container-specific recommendations

Example Configuration

Before:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "example": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["server.js"]
    }
  }
}

After:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "example": {
      "container": "ghcr.io/example/mcp-server:latest",
      "entrypointArgs": ["--verbose"]
    }
  }
}

The specification now uses RFC 2119 keywords (MUST, SHALL NOT) consistently to clarify that direct command execution is explicitly unsupported.

Original prompt

Update the mcp gateway spec in the following way:

  • only containerized or http servers are supported. stdio+command servers are not supported as they cannot be containerized.

Remember: you are using a W3C specification style when make edits.

Custom agent used: technical-doc-writer
AI technical documentation writer for GitHub Actions library using Astro Starlight and GitHub Docs voice


💡 You can make Copilot smarter by setting up custom instructions, customizing its development environment and configuring Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. Learn more Copilot coding agent tips in the docs.

Copilot AI and others added 2 commits January 8, 2026 01:06
Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Update MCP gateway spec to support only containerized or HTTP servers Clarify MCP Gateway only supports containerized stdio and HTTP servers Jan 8, 2026
Copilot AI requested a review from pelikhan January 8, 2026 01:19
@pelikhan pelikhan marked this pull request as ready for review January 8, 2026 02:02
@pelikhan pelikhan merged commit c1c8208 into main Jan 8, 2026
@pelikhan pelikhan deleted the copilot/update-mcp-gateway-spec branch January 8, 2026 02:03
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2 participants