Handshake Tool Checks MCP Server Compatibility After July 2026 Spec Changes

A developer tool called Handshake has been built to help MCP server authors identify which clients will break following the Model Context Protocol revision dated 28 July 2026. The update dropped several methods including initialize, Mcp-Session-Id, ping, and logging/setLevel, while adding new features like server/discover and cache hints. Handshake accepts a server manifest and outputs a colour-coded grid showing per-feature, per-client compatibility verdicts sourced from Sanity-hosted spec and client-support content. The tool uses a deterministic function rather than an AI model to assign verdict colours, achieving 16 correct results out of 18 test cases compared to just 6 for keyword search. Content is structured to enable multi-fact joins, such as flagging Cursor's Roots support as amber because the client docs still list it as supported while the spec marks it deprecated since July 2026.
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