Twelve questions to ask before buying an MCP server from a vendor

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A vendor demo can make an MCP server look polished, but the real test comes with edge cases like expired tokens, cancelled requests, and security verification. The author published a buyer's guide for evaluating MCP server vendors, based on the 2026-07-28 Model Context Protocol specification. The guide covers questions on discovery, stateless request handling, caching, token validation, input validation and rate limiting, disconnect behavior, observability, and conformance testing. It also separates requirements stated by the specification from the author's own recommendations, and comes with a one-page checklist for buyers and engineering teams. This is part one of a planned series on MCP for buyers and CTOs.

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