GitHub has recently launched its Model Context Protocol (MCP) Registry, designed to help developers discover and use the AI tools directly from within their working environment. The registry currently lists over 40 MCP servers from Microsoft, GitHub, Dynatrace, Terraform, and many others.
According to GitHub, the registry aims to ease the process for developers connecting their AI agents to external tools via MCP. Indeed, as the company says, MCP server are spread across multiple registries and repositories, with relevant information often buried in community threads. At the same time, MCP server providers face the burden of publishing and documenting their tools across different platforms.
With GitHub already home to most MCP servers, the MCP Registry makes them dramatically easier to discover, explore, and use — helping developers find the right tools faster and contribute to a more open, interoperable ecosystem.
At launch, GitHub MCP Registry features a curated list of MCP servers created by GitHub partners and the open-source community. Visiting the link associated to an MCP server takes you to a custom view of its repository, with the README prominently displayed and a one-click button to install the server in VS Code or VS Code Insiders. The registry also gives a clear overview of a server’s popularity through GitHub stars and community activity metrics.
The GitHub MCP server registry is not the only existing platform addressing MCP server discovery and deployment. In particular, Docker launched its Docker MCP catalog a few months ago. While still in beta, the Docker MCP catalog includes a few hundreds MCP servers packaged as Docker images and ready to be deployed as containers. Similarly, Postman, the popular platform to build and using web APIs, also maintains an MCP server catalog.
Another notable platform is the OSS MCP community registry, which despite being independently managed, has a close relationship with the GitHub MCP Registry. GitHub explains that developers will publish their MCP servers to the OSS MCP community registry for them to become automatically available through GitHub’s MCP registry. However, it is worth noting that the OSS MCP community registry lists over 1,000 self-published servers, whereas GitHub’s registry only includes slightly over 40 curated entries. GitHub hasn’t clarified whether or when all MCP servers currently listed under the OSS will also appear under its own registry.
Introduced by Anthropic, the Model Context Protocol is an open standard for integrating external resources and tools into LLM-centered apps. Built on a client-server architecture, MCP enables an app to use an MCP client to connect to MCP servers that provide access to datasources or external tools. Since its introduction, MCP has seen wide adoption, most recently from GitHub and Cloudflare, and has inspired the creation of several static and dynamic MCP server catalogs.
