MCPCentral - MCP Server Discovery

Discover and search MCP servers using two real data sources:

1. Official MCP Registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io) — canonical source for server metadata, versions, packages, transport config, and environment variables. Public, no auth required.
2. MCPCentral (mcpcentral.io) — enrichment data: GitHub stars, npm downloads, editorial picks. Paginated bulk endpoint.

Gotchas

• Server names contain / and must be URL-encoded. Names like io.github.owner/server-name must be encoded as io.github.owner%2Fserver-name in URL path segments. Forgetting this causes 404 "Endpoint not found" errors.
• cursor vs next_cursor naming inconsistency. The MCPCentral API accepts a cursor query parameter for pagination, but the response field containing the next token is named next_cursor. These are different names for input and output.
• MCPCentral has no search parameter. The mcpcentral.io/api/servers endpoint only supports paginated browsing sorted by stars. Use the official registry for keyword search.
• title and websiteUrl may be null. Fall back to name for display and repository.url for linking when these fields are absent.
• MCPCentral enrichment data may lag the official registry. Always use the official registry for authoritative version and package data; treat MCPCentral metrics as supplemental.

Important: What the Registry Contains (and Doesn't)

Contains: Package metadata (npm/pypi/docker identifiers), install commands, transport configuration (stdio/SSE/streamable-http), environment variables, remote URLs, repository links, version history.

Does NOT contain: Tool schemas, tool lists, or runtime behavior. The registry stores how to install and connect to a server, not what tools it exposes.

To discover a server's actual tools: Install it and call tools/list via MCP protocol, or read its README/documentation.

API Reference

All endpoints are public. No authentication required.

Official Registry Endpoints

Search servers:

curl "https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0.1/servers?search=QUERY&limit=N&version=latest"

Parameters: search (substring match on name/description), limit (results per page, default 100), cursor (pagination token from previous response), updated_since (ISO 8601 datetime), version=latest (only latest versions).

Get specific server version:

curl "https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0.1/servers/SERVER_NAME_URL_ENCODED/versions/latest"

The server name contains a / (e.g., io.github.owner/server-name), so it must be URL-encoded as %2F in the path. Example: io.github.Digital-Defiance%2Fmcp-filesystem.

List all versions:

curl "https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0.1/servers/SERVER_NAME_URL_ENCODED/versions"

MCPCentral Endpoint