MCP 2026 Roadmap Impact on cMCP and Agent Manifest¶
Status: design backlog, 2026-08-24. This document is informative and does not change the cMCP protocol.
The MCP project's August 2026 roadmap changes four assumptions that matter to the AgenTrust stack: protocol-level sessions are gone, Tasks carry long-running multi-round-trip work, discovery can be progressive, and enterprise identity must distinguish workload identity from delegated user authority.
Required cMCP work¶
| Priority | Gap | Required invariant and deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| P0 | Session-independent correlation | Replace dependence on MCP initialization/session lifetime with a cMCP execution identifier carried across requests. A TRACE claim must remain joinable without implying an MCP protocol session. |
| P0 | Task evidence | Define how task creation, updates, cancellation, webhook delivery, and terminal results bind to one call graph and one policy context. Add replay and out-of-order event tests. |
| P0 | Delegated identity | Record workload identity, represented user, token audience, proof-of-possession key binding, and delegation reference as separate claims. Authentication alone must never be treated as runtime attestation. |
| P1 | Progressive discovery | Bind every authorized tool call to the exact discovered tool schema and catalog checkpoint. Define refresh, cache, removal, and stale-catalog failure behavior for server/discover. |
| P1 | HTTP-native transport | Re-evaluate transport protections and evidence correlation for standard HTTP semantics, retries, caching, and resumable operations. |
| P1 | SDK conformance | Add protocol-version vectors and a compatibility matrix so the gateway fails explicitly when an SDK's Tasks, discovery, or transport behavior is unsupported. |
Required Agent Manifest work¶
- Define an MCP discovery artifact containing the server identity, discovery endpoint, protocol version, and approved catalog-checkpoint policy.
- Clarify that
tool_manifest.catalog_hashcan pin a versioned discovery checkpoint rather than assuming that the complete catalog is static. - Bind workload identity configuration separately from cA2A or OAuth delegated authority. A SPIFFE identity says which workload is present; it does not say which user powers that workload may exercise.
- Specify lifecycle evidence for task-capable agents, including callback endpoints, cancellation authority, and the maximum validity window.
Proposed issue sequence¶
- cMCP #565: stateless execution correlation profile and compatibility tests.
- cMCP #567: Tasks and authenticated callback evidence profile.
- cMCP #568: identity/delegation claim split with DPoP and token-exchange mappings.
- cMCP #566: progressive discovery catalog checkpoints.
- Agent Manifest #340: MCP discovery artifact and dynamic catalog clarification.
Source reviewed: MCP Roadmap, August 22, 2026.