MCP C++ SDK

A C++20 SDK for the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Cross-platform (Windows/macOS/Linux), CMake-based. See Docker-first instructions in BUILD+TEST.MD.

Quick start

Docker-first workflow for all platforms. For details, see BUILD+TEST.MD.

• Linux/macOS:

docker buildx build -f Dockerfile.demo --target test --progress=plain --pull --load -t mcp-cpp-test .
docker buildx build -f Dockerfile.demo --target demo --progress=plain --pull --load -t mcp-cpp-demo .
docker run --rm --name mcp-cpp-demo --mount type=bind,src=$(pwd),dst=/work mcp-cpp-demo

• Windows (PowerShell via WSL2 Ubuntu):

wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "cd /mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp && docker buildx build -f Dockerfile.demo --target test --progress=plain --pull --load -t mcp-cpp-test ."
wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "cd /mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp && docker buildx build -f Dockerfile.demo --target demo --progress=plain --pull --load -t mcp-cpp-demo ."
wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "docker run --rm --name mcp-cpp-demo --mount type=bind,src=/mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp,dst=/work mcp-cpp-demo"

API Reference

This section summarizes the primary SDK interfaces and feature-specific APIs.

• Client API header: include/mcp/Client.h
• Server API header: include/mcp/Server.h
• Transport headers: include/mcp/Transport.h, include/mcp/InMemoryTransport.hpp, include/mcp/StdioTransport.hpp, include/mcp/SharedMemoryTransport.hpp, include/mcp/HTTPTransport.hpp, include/mcp/HTTPServer.hpp

Client API (IClient / Client)

• Connection: Connect(transport), Disconnect(), IsConnected()
• Initialize: Initialize(clientInfo, capabilities) → ServerCapabilities
• Tools: ListTools(), ListToolsPaged(cursor, limit), CallTool(name, args), CallToolTask(name, args, task)
• Tasks: GetTask(taskId), ListTasks(), ListTasksPaged(cursor, limit), GetTaskResult(taskId), CancelTask(taskId)
• Resources: ListResources(), ListResourcesPaged(cursor, limit), ReadResource(uri)
• Resource templates: ListResourceTemplates(), ListResourceTemplatesPaged(cursor, limit)
• Subscriptions: SubscribeResources(), SubscribeResources(optional<string> uri), UnsubscribeResources(), UnsubscribeResources(optional<string> uri)
• Prompts: ListPrompts(), ListPromptsPaged(cursor, limit), GetPrompt(name, args)
• Utilities: Complete(params), Ping()
• Roots and elicitation: SetRootsListHandler(handler), NotifyRootsListChanged(), SetElicitationHandler(handler)
• Sampling (server → client): SetSamplingHandler(handler)
• Notifications & progress: SetNotificationHandler(method, handler), RemoveNotificationHandler(method), SetProgressHandler(handler), SetErrorHandler(handler)

Example (connect + initialize):

ClientFactory factory; Implementation info{"MyClient","1.0.0"};
auto client = factory.CreateClient(info);
client->Connect(std::move(transport)).get();
ClientCapabilities caps; auto serverCaps = client->Initialize(info, caps).get();

Server API (IServer / Server)

• Lifecycle: Start(transport), Stop(), IsRunning()
• Initialize: HandleInitialize(clientInfo, capabilities)
• Tools: RegisterTool(name, handler) or RegisterTool(tool, handler), UnregisterTool(name), ListTools(), CallTool(name, args), CallToolTask(name, args, task)
• Tasks: GetTask(taskId), ListTasks(), ListTasksPaged(cursor, limit), GetTaskResult(taskId), CancelTask(taskId)
• Resources: RegisterResource(uri, handler) or RegisterResource(resource, handler), UnregisterResource(uri), ListResources(), ReadResource(uri)
• Resource templates: RegisterResourceTemplate(t), UnregisterResourceTemplate(template), ListResourceTemplates()
• Prompts: RegisterPrompt(name, handler) or RegisterPrompt(prompt, handler), UnregisterPrompt(name), ListPrompts(), GetPrompt(name, args)
• Utilities: SetCompletionHandler(handler), RequestCreateMessage(params), RequestCreateMessageTask(params, task), RequestElicitation(request), RequestElicitationTask(request, task), RequestRootsList(), Ping()
• Sampling: SetSamplingHandler(handler)
• Keepalive: SetKeepaliveIntervalMs(intervalMs)
• Logging: LogToClient(level, message, data)
• Notifications: NotifyResourcesListChanged(), NotifyResourceUpdated(uri), NotifyToolsListChanged(), NotifyPromptsListChanged()
• Messaging: SendNotification(method, params), SendProgress(token, progress, message)
• Errors & caps: SetErrorHandler(handler), GetCapabilities(), SetCapabilities(caps)

Transport API (ITransport & factories)

• Core: Start(), Close(), IsConnected(), GetSessionId()
• Messaging: SendRequest(req), SendNotification(note)
• Handlers: SetNotificationHandler(h), SetErrorHandler(h), SetRequestHandler(h)
• Implementations:
  • In-memory: include/mcp/InMemoryTransport.hpp
  • Stdio: include/mcp/StdioTransport.hpp
  • Shared Memory: include/mcp/SharedMemoryTransport.hpp
  • HTTP client: include/mcp/HTTPTransport.hpp
  • HTTP server/acceptor: include/mcp/HTTPServer.hpp

HTTP Authentication (Bearer/OAuth2)

The HTTP client transport supports static Bearer tokens and OAuth2 client‑credentials. See configuration keys and IAuth injection examples in docs/api/transport.md.

Resource Templates

The SDK supports listing resource templates, allowing clients to discover resource URI patterns exposed by a server.

• Server: register templates using Server::RegisterResourceTemplate(). Example:

  mcp::Server server("My MCP Server");
  mcp::ResourceTemplate rt{
      "file:///{path}",
      "File Reader",
      std::optional<std::string>("Reads files"),
      std::optional<std::string>("text/plain")
  };
  server.RegisterResourceTemplate(rt);

• Client: list templates with client->ListResourceTemplates() and inspect fields:

  auto fut = client->ListResourceTemplates();
  auto templates = fut.get();
  for (const auto& t : templates) {
      // t.uriTemplate, t.name, t.description, t.mimeType
  }

Resource Subscriptions

The client supports subscribing to resource update notifications globally or per-URI.

• Global: client->SubscribeResources() and client->UnsubscribeResources()
• Per-URI: client->SubscribeResources(std::optional<std::string>("mem://1")) to subscribe to a single URI. Use UnsubscribeResources(std::optional<std::string>("mem://1")) to remove.

Example:

// Subscribe to a specific resource URI
auto fut = client->SubscribeResources(std::optional<std::string>("test://a"));
fut.get(); // wait for ack

Paging

The client supports paged listing for tools, resources, resource templates, and prompts. Each List*Paged API accepts an optional cursor and limit and returns a page plus an optional nextCursor.

Example (tools):

// Page 1
auto p1 = client->ListToolsPaged(std::nullopt, 2);
auto r1 = p1.get();
// r1.tools, r1.nextCursor

// Page 2 using nextCursor
auto p2 = client->ListToolsPaged(r1.nextCursor, 2);
auto r2 = p2.get();

Similar helpers exist for resources, resource templates, and prompts:

auto res = client->ListResourcesPaged(std::nullopt, 10).get();
auto tmpl = client->ListResourceTemplatesPaged(std::nullopt, 10).get();
auto prm = client->ListPromptsPaged(std::nullopt, 10).get();

See tests for examples: ClientPaging.* in tests/test_client_paging.cpp.

Server-side Sampling

The server can handle client-initiated sampling/createMessage by registering a sampling handler. The handler returns a JSONValue shaped per MCP spec (e.g., model/role/content).

Minimal example:

server.SetSamplingHandler([](const JSONValue& messages,
                              const JSONValue& modelPreferences,
                              const JSONValue& systemPrompt,
                              const JSONValue& includeContext) {
   (void)messages; (void)modelPreferences; (void)systemPrompt; (void)includeContext;
   return std::async(std::launch::deferred, [](){
     JSONValue::Object resultObj;
     resultObj["model"] = std::make_shared<JSONValue>(std::string("example-model"));
     resultObj["role"] = std::make_shared<JSONValue>(std::string("assistant"));
     JSONValue::Array contentArr;
     JSONValue::Object textContent;
     textContent["type"] = std::make_shared<JSONValue>(std::string("text"));
     textContent["text"] = std::make_shared<JSONValue>(std::string("hello"));
     contentArr.push_back(std::make_shared<JSONValue>(textContent));
     resultObj["content"] = std::make_shared<JSONValue>(contentArr);
     return JSONValue{resultObj};
   });
});

See ServerSampling.HandlesCreateMessageRequest in tests/test_sampling_handler.cpp.

Tests

Tests use GoogleTest via CMake FetchContent (build-time only). See BUILD+TEST.MD for the Docker/WSL2 flow.

Conformance

The repo includes a Dockerized MCP conformance server fixture plus an official server-conformance runner script:

• Fixture: examples/conformance_server/main.cpp
• Shared profile: src/mcp/ConformanceServerSupport.h
• Runner: scripts/run_server_conformance.sh

The conformance runner accepts an explicit official package source via MCP_CONFORMANCE_RUNNER_SOURCE.

• Linux/macOS with npm package source:

MCP_CONFORMANCE_RUNNER_SOURCE='@modelcontextprotocol/conformance@0.1.15' ./scripts/run_server_conformance.sh

• Linux/macOS with a local tarball already present in the repo root:

MCP_CONFORMANCE_RUNNER_SOURCE='./modelcontextprotocol-conformance-0.1.15.tgz' ./scripts/run_server_conformance.sh

• Windows (PowerShell via WSL) with npm package source:

wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "cd /mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp && MCP_CONFORMANCE_RUNNER_SOURCE='@modelcontextprotocol/conformance@0.1.15' ./scripts/run_server_conformance.sh"

• Windows (PowerShell via WSL) with a local tarball already present in the repo root:

wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "cd /mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp && MCP_CONFORMANCE_RUNNER_SOURCE='./modelcontextprotocol-conformance-0.1.15.tgz' ./scripts/run_server_conformance.sh"

Docker Demo

Build and run the client/server demo using stdio transport (WSL2 PowerShell example below):

wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "cd /mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp && docker buildx build -f Dockerfile.demo --target demo --progress=plain --pull --load -t mcp-cpp-demo ."
wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash -lc "docker run --rm --name mcp-cpp-demo --mount type=bind,src=/mnt/c/<path-to-repo>/mcp-cpp,dst=/work mcp-cpp-demo"

Examples

• examples/typed_quickstart — minimal end-to-end usage of typed wrappers (tools/resources/prompts).
• examples/resource_chunking — demonstrates experimental resource range reads (offset/length) and reassembly of chunks. If the server advertises capabilities.experimental.resourceReadChunking.maxChunkBytes, returned slices are hard-clamped to that size; the example shows how to reassemble correctly using typed helpers.

License

MIT