From deployed to discovered.

One submission. Every directory.

You don't submit to PulseMCP. You don't submit to Smithery. You submit once to the Official MCP Registry — and every aggregator in the ecosystem ingests from it automatically.

The MCP ecosystem has a clear hierarchy. At the top is registry.modelcontextprotocol.io — the canonical, Anthropic-affiliated source of truth for all MCP servers. Below it are aggregators: PulseMCP, Smithery, and a growing list of client-side discovery tools. They all pull from the registry. Submit once, appear everywhere.

Four things you need in hand.

This guide assumes your server is already built and deployed. If it's still on your laptop, deploy it first — the registry needs a live URL to verify your server is real.

The application form. Every field explained.

server.json is a structured description of your MCP server. The mcp-publisher CLI reads it and sends it to the registry. Get the fields right here and the publish command works first time.

The complete working example

This is the server.json for the MCP Commerce Server Starter — a real listing that is live in the registry right now. Every field is filled in correctly. Use it as your template.

{
  "$schema": "https://static.modelcontextprotocol.io/schemas/2025-12-11/server.schema.json",
  "name": "io.github.YourGitHubUsername/your-repo-name",
  "title": "Your Server Display Name",
  "description": "One sentence. Must be 100 characters or fewer.",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "websiteUrl": "https://yourdocumentationurl.com",
  "repository": {
    "url": "https://github.com/YourGitHubUsername/your-repo-name",
    "source": "github"
  },
  "remotes": [
    {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://your-deployed-server.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  ]
}

Field reference

One command. Then you're set.

mcp-publisher is a small CLI tool built and maintained by the MCP Registry team. You install it once per machine and use it for every server you list.

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install mcp-publisher

Windows

Download the binary from the registry releases page. Extract it and add it to your PATH.

Verify the install

mcp-publisher --version
# mcp-publisher 1.7.9 (or newer)

Prove you own the namespace.

Before you can publish, the registry needs to verify that the GitHub account in your namespace actually belongs to you. This is a one-time browser step per session.

1. Run the login command

   From any terminal directory:

   mcp-publisher login github

   The CLI prints a device code and a URL:

   Logging in with github...
   
   To authenticate, please:
   1. Go to: https://github.com/login/device
   2. Enter code: XXXX-XXXX
   3. Authorize this application
   Waiting for authorization...

2. Open the URL and enter the code

   Go to github.com/login/device in your browser. Enter the code shown in the terminal exactly. Click Authorize.

3. Wait for confirmation in the terminal

   The terminal completes automatically within a few seconds:

   Successfully authenticated!
   ✓ Successfully logged in

mcp-publisher login github && mcp-publisher publish

What you just authorized: identity verification only. The registry confirms "this person owns this GitHub account." No access to your code, repositories, or other GitHub data is granted. This is equivalent to signing a package before putting it on a shelf.

One command. Four errors to know first.

The publish command itself is trivial. What trips people up is the validation — the registry has strict rules that it enforces at submission time. Know these four errors before you run it and you'll clear them on the first try.

The publish command

Run from the directory containing your server.json. Chain it with login to avoid the token expiry issue:

mcp-publisher login github && mcp-publisher publish

On success:

Publishing to https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io...
✓ Successfully published
✓ Server io.github.YourUsername/your-repo version 1.0.0

The 4 errors you'll hit

{"message":"expected length <= 100","location":"body.description"}

{"detail":"You do not have permission to publish this server.
 You have permission to publish: io.github.NewPlanetWW/*
 Attempting to publish: io.github.newplanetww/..."}

{"message":"value must be \"streamable-http\"","location":"remotes[0].type"}
{"message":"unsupported transport type for remotes"}

{"detail":"Invalid or expired Registry JWT token"}

Confirm it's actually there.

The publish command reports success, but always verify directly against the registry API. This takes 10 seconds and tells you exactly what the registry has on file.

curl "https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=YourGitHubUsername"

A successful listing looks like this:

{
  "servers": [
    {
      "server": {
        "name": "io.github.YourUsername/your-repo",
        "title": "Your Server Display Name",
        "description": "Your description here.",
        "version": "1.0.0",
        ...
      },
      "_meta": {
        "io.modelcontextprotocol.registry/official": {
          "status": "active",
          "publishedAt": "2026-05-24T00:48:03Z",
          "isLatest": true
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "metadata": { "count": 1 }
}

What to look for: "status": "active" and "isLatest": true. Both present means you're live.

The wait. And how to skip it.

Once you're in the official registry, PulseMCP and Smithery pick you up automatically — but not instantly. Here's the timeline and how to speed it up.

Updating is the same three steps.

The registry is versioned. When you make significant changes to your server — new tools, new deployment URL, updated description — republish with an incremented version number.

1. Increment the version in server.json

   Bump the version field. Follow semantic versioning: new tools = minor bump (1.0.0 → 1.1.0), bug fixes = patch bump (1.0.0 → 1.0.1), breaking changes = major bump (1.0.0 → 2.0.0).

   "version": "1.1.0"

2. Update any changed fields

   New Vercel URL? Update remotes[0].url. Better description? Update description. New documentation page? Update websiteUrl.

3. Republish

   mcp-publisher login github && mcp-publisher publish

   The registry replaces your existing entry. PulseMCP picks up the update on its next cycle.

Six questions every publisher asks first.

The directory is being filled right now.

Sources: Official MCP Registry · PulseMCP · modelcontextprotocol/registry on GitHub · MCP Registry Publishing Guide · Smithery. Verify all timelines and limits against live sources — the MCP ecosystem moves fast.