name: mcp-validation description: > Quality and completeness validation phase for MCP server development. Use when scoring an MCP server against a quality rubric, evaluating tool discoverability, checking interface completeness, assessing error handling quality, reviewing documentation, validating safety properties, or determining if a server is ready for production use. Covers six quality dimensions scored as PASS, WARN, or FAIL with an overall APPROVE, REVISE, or REJECT verdict.

MCP Validation

Quality scoring against six dimensions before production use.

Intent Router

Load reference files on demand — only when the corresponding topic is active:

• references/mcp-quality-rubric.md — Load to score each dimension; contains PASS/WARN/FAIL thresholds, examples, and fix recipes for M01–M06
• references/validation-report-template.md — Load when producing the validation report

Quick Start — Quality Dimensions

Run mcp-verification before scoring — a server that fails the verification checklist cannot receive valid dimension scores.

Scoring Workflow

1. Run the mcp-verification checklist — confirm all items PASS
2. Load references/mcp-quality-rubric.md
3. Score each dimension M01–M06 as PASS, WARN, or FAIL
4. Document rationale for each score (1–2 sentences)
5. Compute overall verdict using the thresholds below
6. Load references/validation-report-template.md and write the report

Verdict Thresholds

M05 (Safety) is a hard gate — a Safety FAIL always produces REJECT regardless of other dimension scores.

Common Failures

M01: Generic tool descriptions ("Process the input"), tool names that don't hint at their function. Fix: rewrite descriptions to state action, output, and domain clearly.

M03: Uncaught exceptions in handlers that crash the server or disconnect the transport. Fix: wrap all handler code in try/catch; return isError: true content.

M05: Path parameters passed directly to fs.readFile or open() without path.resolve() validation. Fix: use an allowed-directory check before any file system access.

Safety Notes

Score M05 with particular care — a server that exposes path traversal or shell injection vulnerabilities must not ship regardless of other scores. Load references/mcp-quality-rubric.md M05 section for specific fix recipes.

Resource Index