tower-mcp 0.17.0

Tower-native Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation
Documentation

tower-mcp

Crates.io Documentation CI License MSRV MCP Conformance

Tower-native Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation for Rust.

Overview

tower-mcp provides a composable, middleware-friendly approach to building MCP servers using the Tower service abstraction. Unlike framework-style MCP implementations, tower-mcp treats MCP as just another protocol that can be served through Tower's Service trait.

This means:

  • Standard tower middleware (tracing, metrics, rate limiting, auth) just works
  • Same service can be exposed over multiple transports (stdio, HTTP, WebSocket)
  • Easy integration with existing tower-based applications (axum, tonic)

Familiar to axum Users

If you've used axum, tower-mcp's API will feel familiar:

  • Extractor pattern: Tool handlers use extractors like State<T>, Json<T>, and Context
  • Router composition: McpRouter::merge() and McpRouter::nest() work like axum's router methods
  • Per-handler middleware: Apply Tower layers to individual tools, resources, or prompts via .layer()
  • Builder pattern: Fluent builders for tools, resources, and prompts

Why tower-mcp?

Strengths

Tower-native middleware Timeout, rate-limit, auth, tracing -- on the whole server or on individual tools. Any tower::Layer works.
All transports stdio, HTTP/SSE (with stream resumption), WebSocket, and child process. Same router, any transport.
In-process testing TestClient lets you test MCP servers without spawning a subprocess or opening a socket.
Conformance 48/48 server checks and all 18 client scenarios (235 checks) for 2025-11-25, plus 114/114 server checks and all 32 client scenarios (399 checks) for 2026-07-28, all on conformance@0.2.0-alpha.10 with empty baselines in CI on every PR via the official MCP conformance suite. The suite is upstream-maintained and grows with the spec, so this is a moving target -- not a one-time achievement. SEP-2484 (accepted) makes conformance scenarios a prerequisite for standards-track SEPs reaching final.
Capability filtering Session-based tool/resource/prompt visibility for multi-tenant patterns.
No proc macros required Builder pattern API with optional trait-based tools. Nothing hidden behind #[derive]. Optional #[tool_fn] / #[prompt_fn] / #[resource_fn] macros available for convenience (feature: macros).
Async tasks Full task lifecycle -- background execution, cancellation, TTL cleanup, per-tool task support mode. Clients can poll or wait for long-running tool results.
Multi-server proxy Aggregate N backend servers behind a single endpoint with per-backend middleware and namespace isolation.
axum ecosystem HTTP and WebSocket transports build on axum, so existing axum middleware and extractors work.

Trade-offs

  • More boilerplate than macro-based approaches for simple servers, though the optional macros feature narrows this gap significantly.
  • Requires Tower/Service familiarity. The .layer() composition model is powerful but has a learning curve if you haven't used Tower before.
  • Heavier dependency tree than minimal single-transport implementations, especially with features = ["full"].

Guides

Guide Use it when
Client usage Choosing a transport, connecting, handling callbacks, making requests, configuring caching, or defining retry policy
HTTP deployment Mounting an endpoint, configuring proxies and origins, choosing session/scaling policy, or placing middleware and timeouts
Protocol versions Selecting compile-time and runtime support, comparing lifecycle behavior, planning interoperability, or upgrading revisions
OAuth authorization Protecting an MCP resource server, building an interactive or service client, choosing registration/storage policy, or preparing an OAuth deployment
MCP Apps Returning typed app resources from tools with negotiation and safe fallback
Examples index Looking for a runnable server, client, transport, middleware, or extension pattern

Quick Start

use tower_mcp::{McpRouter, ToolBuilder, CallToolResult};
use schemars::JsonSchema;
use serde::Deserialize;

// Define your input type - schema is auto-generated
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, JsonSchema)]
struct GreetInput {
    name: String,
}

// Build a tool with type-safe handler
let greet = ToolBuilder::new("greet")
    .title("Greet")
    .description("Greet someone by name")
    .handler(|input: GreetInput| async move {
        Ok(CallToolResult::text(format!("Hello, {}!", input.name)))
    })
    .build();

// Create router with tools
let router = McpRouter::new()
    .server_info("my-server", "1.0.0")
    .instructions("This server provides greeting functionality")
    .tool(greet);

// The router implements tower::Service and can be composed with middleware

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
tower-mcp = "0.17"

Tool input types use schemars::JsonSchema, and the derive must come from the same schemars major version tower-mcp uses (currently 1.x). To avoid a version skew (which surfaces as opaque ExtractorHandler trait-bound errors), either match the version or depend on schemars through the re-export:

use tower_mcp::schemars::JsonSchema;

Feature Flags

Feature Description
full Enable all optional features
http HTTP transport with SSE support (adds axum, hyper)
websocket WebSocket transport for full-duplex communication
childproc Child process transport for spawning subprocess MCP servers
oauth OAuth 2.1 resource server support -- JWT validation, protected resource metadata (requires http)
jwks JWKS endpoint fetching for remote key sets (requires oauth)
http-client HTTP client transport for connecting to remote MCP servers
oauth-client OAuth client support -- authorization code with PKCE/registration/refresh/scope escalation, client credentials, discovery, and token providers (requires http-client)
testing Test utilities (TestClient) for in-process testing
dynamic-tools Runtime registration/deregistration of tools, prompts, and resources
proxy Multi-server aggregation proxy (McpProxy)
macros Optional proc macros (#[tool_fn], #[prompt_fn], #[resource_fn], #[resource_template_fn])
resilience Re-export tower-resilience circuit breaker, rate limiter, and bulkhead layers
mcp-apps Typed, security-bounded server support for the stable MCP Apps extension. Runtime advertisement remains explicit via McpRouter::with_mcp_apps().
protocol-2026-07-28 Compile the released 2026-07-28 protocol implementation. Use ProtocolSupport to narrow the exact versions enabled by a client or server at runtime.
stateless Compatibility alias for the former 2026 protocol feature name. New integrations should use protocol-2026-07-28.

Example with features:

[dependencies]
tower-mcp = { version = "0.17", features = ["full"] }

Types Only

If you only need MCP protocol types and error types -- without tower, tokio, or axum -- use the tower-mcp-types crate directly. This is useful for editor integrations, code generators, protocol validators, or any context where you want to serialize/deserialize MCP messages without a runtime.

[dependencies]
tower-mcp-types = "0.17"

tower-mcp-types provides all types from tower_mcp::protocol and tower_mcp::error with minimal dependencies (serde, serde_json, thiserror, base64). The full tower-mcp crate re-exports everything from tower-mcp-types, so there is no duplication if you use both.

Tool Definition

Builder Pattern (Recommended)

use tower_mcp::{ToolBuilder, CallToolResult};
use schemars::JsonSchema;
use serde::Deserialize;

#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, JsonSchema)]
struct AddInput {
    a: i64,
    b: i64,
}

let add = ToolBuilder::new("add")
    .description("Add two numbers")
    .read_only()  // Hint: this tool doesn't modify state
    .handler(|input: AddInput| async move {
        Ok(CallToolResult::text(format!("{}", input.a + input.b)))
    })
    .build();

Proc Macros (Optional)

Enable with features = ["macros"]. The macros generate builder code -- you can always eject to the builder pattern for full control.

use tower_mcp::{tool_fn, prompt_fn, resource_fn, resource_template_fn};
use tower_mcp::{CallToolResult, McpRouter};
use tower_mcp::protocol::{GetPromptResult, ReadResourceResult};

#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, JsonSchema)]
struct AddInput { a: i64, b: i64 }

#[tool_fn(description = "Add two numbers")]
async fn add(input: AddInput) -> Result<CallToolResult, tower_mcp::Error> {
    Ok(CallToolResult::text(format!("{}", input.a + input.b)))
}

#[prompt_fn(description = "Greet someone", args(name = "Name to greet"))]
async fn greet(args: HashMap<String, String>) -> Result<GetPromptResult, tower_mcp::Error> {
    let name = args.get("name").cloned().unwrap_or_default();
    Ok(GetPromptResult::user_message(format!("Hello, {name}!")))
}

#[resource_fn(uri = "app://config", description = "App configuration")]
async fn config() -> Result<ReadResourceResult, tower_mcp::Error> {
    Ok(ReadResourceResult::text("app://config", "debug=true"))
}

// Each macro generates a constructor: add_tool(), greet_prompt(), config_resource()
let router = McpRouter::new()
    .server_info("my-server", "1.0.0")
    .tool(add_tool())
    .prompt(greet_prompt())
    .resource(config_resource());

Trait-Based (For Complex Tools)

use tower_mcp::tool::McpTool;
use tower_mcp::{Result, CallToolResult};
use schemars::JsonSchema;
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
use std::sync::Arc;

struct Calculator {
    precision: u32,
}

#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, JsonSchema)]
struct CalcInput {
    expression: String,
}

impl McpTool for Calculator {
    const NAME: &'static str = "calculate";
    const DESCRIPTION: &'static str = "Evaluate a mathematical expression";

    type Input = CalcInput;
    type Output = f64;

    async fn call(&self, input: Self::Input) -> Result<Self::Output> {
        // Your calculation logic here
        Ok(42.0)
    }
}

// Convert to Tool and register
let calc = Calculator { precision: 10 };
let router = McpRouter::new().tool(calc.into_tool());

Handler with Extractors (State, Context, JSON)

Use axum-style extractors to access state, context, and typed input:

use std::sync::Arc;
use tower_mcp::{ToolBuilder, CallToolResult};
use tower_mcp::extract::{State, Context, Json};

#[derive(Clone)]
struct AppState { db_url: String }

let state = Arc::new(AppState { db_url: "postgres://...".into() });

let search = ToolBuilder::new("search")
    .description("Search with progress updates")
    .extractor_handler(state, |
        State(app): State<Arc<AppState>>,
        ctx: Context,
        Json(input): Json<SearchInput>,
    | async move {
        // Report progress
        ctx.report_progress(0.5, Some(1.0), Some("Searching...")).await;
        // Use state
        let results = format!("Searched {} for: {}", app.db_url, input.query);
        Ok(CallToolResult::text(results))
    })
    .build();

See docs.rs for more patterns including per-tool middleware, icons and titles, raw JSON handlers, and output schemas.

Resource Definition

use tower_mcp::ResourceBuilder;

// Static resource with inline content
let config = ResourceBuilder::new("file:///config.json")
    .name("Configuration")
    .description("Server configuration")
    .json(serde_json::json!({
        "version": "1.0.0",
        "debug": true
    }))
    .build();

// Dynamic resource with handler
let status = ResourceBuilder::new("app:///status")
    .name("Server Status")
    .description("Current server status")
    .handler(|| async {
        Ok("Running".to_string())
    })
    .build();

let router = McpRouter::new()
    .resource(config)
    .resource(status);

Prompt Definition

use tower_mcp::{PromptBuilder, GetPromptResult};

let greet = PromptBuilder::new("greet")
    .description("Generate a greeting")
    .required_arg("name", "Name to greet")
    .optional_arg("style", "Greeting style (formal/casual)")
    .handler(|args| async move {
        let name = args.get("name").map(|s| s.as_str()).unwrap_or("World");
        let style = args.get("style").map(|s| s.as_str()).unwrap_or("casual");

        let text = match style {
            "formal" => format!("Good day, {}. How may I assist you?", name),
            _ => format!("Hey {}!", name),
        };

        // Builder handles message construction
        Ok(GetPromptResult::builder()
            .description("A friendly greeting")
            .user(text)
            .build())
    })
    .build();

let router = McpRouter::new().prompt(greet);

Router Composition

Combine routers like in axum:

// Merge routers (combines all tools/resources/prompts)
let api_router = McpRouter::new()
    .tool(search_tool)
    .tool(fetch_tool);

let admin_router = McpRouter::new()
    .tool(reset_tool)
    .tool(stats_tool);

let combined = McpRouter::new()
    .merge(api_router)
    .merge(admin_router);

// Nest with prefix (adds prefix to all tool names)
let v1 = McpRouter::new().tool(legacy_tool);
let v2 = McpRouter::new().tool(new_tool);

let versioned = McpRouter::new()
    .nest("v1", v1)   // Tools become "v1_legacy_tool"
    .nest("v2", v2);  // Tools become "v2_new_tool"

Multi-Server Proxy

Aggregate multiple backend MCP servers behind a single endpoint with McpProxy (feature: proxy). Each backend's tools, resources, and prompts are namespaced to avoid collisions:

use tower_mcp::proxy::McpProxy;
use tower_mcp::client::StdioClientTransport;

let proxy = McpProxy::builder("my-proxy", "1.0.0")
    .backend("db", StdioClientTransport::spawn("db-server", &[]).await?)
    .await
    .backend("fs", StdioClientTransport::spawn("fs-server", &[]).await?)
    .await
    .build()
    .await?;

// Tools become db_query, fs_read, etc.
// Serve over any transport.
StdioTransport::new(proxy).run().await?;

Per-backend Tower middleware applies to individual backends:

use std::time::Duration;
use tower::timeout::TimeoutLayer;

let proxy = McpProxy::builder("proxy", "1.0.0")
    .backend("fast", cache_transport).await
    .backend_layer(TimeoutLayer::new(Duration::from_secs(2)))
    .backend("slow", llm_transport).await
    .backend_layer(TimeoutLayer::new(Duration::from_secs(60)))
    .build().await?;

The proxy also supports notification forwarding (backend list-changed events propagate to clients), health checks (proxy.health_check().await), and request coalescing via tower-resilience's CoalesceLayer.

Backends don't need to be built with tower-mcp -- the proxy communicates over standard MCP (JSON-RPC), so it works with servers written in any language or framework: Python (FastMCP), TypeScript, Go, or anything that speaks the MCP protocol. This makes tower-mcp a natural aggregation and middleware layer for polyglot MCP deployments.

See the proxy module docs and examples/proxy.rs.

Router-Level State

Share state across all handlers using with_state():

use std::sync::Arc;
use tower_mcp::extract::Extension;

#[derive(Clone)]
struct AppState {
    db: DatabasePool,
    config: Config,
}

let state = Arc::new(AppState { /* ... */ });

// Tools access state via Extension<T> extractor
let tool = ToolBuilder::new("query")
    .extractor_handler(
        (),
        |Extension(app): Extension<Arc<AppState>>, Json(input): Json<QueryInput>| async move {
            let result = app.db.query(&input.sql).await?;
            Ok(CallToolResult::text(result))
        },
    )
    .build();

let router = McpRouter::new()
    .with_state(state)  // Makes AppState available to all handlers
    .tool(tool);

Transports

Stdio (CLI/local)

use tower_mcp::{McpRouter, StdioTransport};

let router = McpRouter::new()
    .server_info("my-server", "1.0.0")
    .tool(my_tool);

// Serve over stdin/stdout
StdioTransport::new(router).serve().await?;

HTTP with SSE

use tower_mcp::{McpRouter, HttpTransport};

let router = McpRouter::new()
    .server_info("my-server", "1.0.0")
    .tool(my_tool);

let transport = HttpTransport::new(router);
let app = transport.into_router();

// Serve with axum
let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:3000").await?;
axum::serve(listener, app).await?;

OAuth-Protected HTTP

Use the cohesive resource-server builder so metadata publication, bearer-token validation, audience binding, and operation-level scopes are installed in the safe order:

use tower_mcp::{HttpTransport, McpRouter};
use tower_mcp::oauth::{JwtValidator, ProtectedResourceMetadata, ScopePolicy};

fn protect(router: McpRouter) -> Result<axum::Router, tower_mcp::BoxError> {
let resource = "https://mcp.example.com/mcp";
let metadata = ProtectedResourceMetadata::new(resource)
    .authorization_server("https://auth.example.com")
    .scope("mcp:read")
    .scope("mcp:write");
let validator = JwtValidator::from_rsa_pem(include_bytes!("public-key.pem"))?
    .expected_issuer("https://auth.example.com")
    .expected_audience(resource);
let scopes = ScopePolicy::new()
    .default_scope("mcp:read")
    .tool_scope("publish", "mcp:write");

let app = HttpTransport::new(router)
    .into_oauth_router_at("/mcp", validator, metadata, scopes)?;
Ok(app)
}

See the OAuth authorization guide for JWKS validation, interactive authorization code, registration choices, persistence, scope step-up, service credentials, and the production checklist. The http_auth and oauth_client examples are runnable counterparts.

MCP Middleware

tower-mcp ships three MCP-specific middleware layers alongside standard tower middleware:

Layer Target Purpose
McpTracingLayer All requests Structured tracing with spans for request lifecycle
ToolCallLoggingLayer tools/call only Focused tool call audit logging with annotation hints
AuditLayer All requests Comprehensive audit events (mcp::audit tracing target)
use tower::ServiceBuilder;
use tower_mcp::middleware::{AuditLayer, McpTracingLayer};

let transport = StdioTransport::new(router)
    .layer(
        ServiceBuilder::new()
            .layer(McpTracingLayer::new())
            .layer(AuditLayer::new())
            .into_inner(),
    );

Standard tower middleware (timeout, rate limiting, concurrency) also composes naturally via .layer() on transports and individual tools.

Testing

tower-mcp includes TestClient (feature: testing) for in-process server testing -- no subprocess, no network, no port management:

use tower_mcp::TestClient;
use serde_json::json;

let mut client = TestClient::from_router(router);
client.initialize().await;

// List and call tools
let tools = client.list_tools().await;
assert_eq!(tools.len(), 1);

let result = client.call_tool("greet", json!({"name": "World"})).await;
assert_eq!(result.all_text(), "Hello, World!");

// Typed deserialization
let stats: ServerStats = client.call_tool_typed("stats", json!({})).await;

// Assert expected errors
let err = client.call_tool_expect_error("missing", json!({})).await;

TestClient handles JSON-RPC framing, request IDs, and protocol initialization. Methods panic on unexpected errors, keeping test code concise.

Capability Filtering

Control which tools, resources, and prompts each session can see. This enables multi-tenant patterns where different clients get different capabilities based on auth claims or session state:

use tower_mcp::CapabilityFilter;

// Hide write tools from sessions that aren't authorized
let router = McpRouter::new()
    .tool(read_tool)
    .tool(write_tool)
    .tool_filter(CapabilityFilter::write_guard(|session| {
        session.get::<UserRole>()
            .map(|r| r.is_admin())
            .unwrap_or(false)
    }));

write_guard uses tool annotations: tools marked .read_only() are always visible, while other tools are only shown to sessions where the predicate returns true. Hidden tools return "method not found" by default, or configure DenialBehavior::Unauthorized to reveal their existence without granting access.

Filters work on resources and prompts too:

let router = McpRouter::new()
    .resource(public_resource)
    .resource(internal_resource)
    .resource_filter(CapabilityFilter::new(|session, resource: &Resource| {
        !resource.name().contains("internal") || session.get::<AdminClaim>().is_some()
    }));

Architecture

                    +-----------------+
                    |  Your App       |
                    +-----------------+
                           |
                    +-----------------+
                    | Tower Middleware|  <-- tracing, metrics, auth, etc.
                    +-----------------+
                           |
                    +-----------------+
                    | JsonRpcService  |  <-- JSON-RPC 2.0 framing
                    +-----------------+
                           |
                    +-----------------+
                    |   McpRouter     |  <-- Request dispatch
                    +-----------------+
                           |
              +------------+------------+
              |            |            |
         +--------+   +--------+   +--------+
         | Tool 1 |   | Tool 2 |   | Tool N |
         +--------+   +--------+   +--------+

Protocol Compliance

tower-mcp targets the MCP specification 2025-11-25 with backward compatibility for 2025-03-26. The official MCP conformance test suite runs in CI on every PR via conformance.yml, currently passing:

For application-facing guidance on the stable default, opt-in 2026-07-28 implementation, compile-time features, runtime allowlists, interoperability, and upgrade policy, start with the protocol-version guide.

  • Server (2025-11-25): 48/48 checks (conformance@0.2.0-alpha.10, --suite all); the server baseline is empty
  • Client (2025-11-25): all 18 scenarios green, 235 checks (conformance@0.2.0-alpha.10, --suite all); the client baseline is empty
  • Server (2026-07-28): 114/114 checks (conformance@0.2.0-alpha.10, --suite all); the server baseline is empty
  • Client (2026-07-28): all 32 scenarios green, 399 checks (conformance@0.2.0-alpha.10, --suite all); the client baseline is empty

Both protocol revisions run on the same harness pin so the results are directly comparable with each other and with rmcp's current conformance workflow. Because the suite is upstream-maintained and grows with the spec, these counts shift as scenarios are added or version-gated -- treat the green CI badge as the source of truth, not any single snapshot. The empty baselines make any new failure immediately visible.

The released 2026-07-28 implementation is available through the opt-in protocol-2026-07-28 feature. It covers sessionless dispatch, server/discover, subscriptions/listen, per-request metadata, response-cache hints, Multi Round-Trip Requests, and the final Tasks extension. The default runtime remains 2025-11-25, including for clients built with full.

Compile-time availability and runtime allowlists are separate. The protocol-version guide explains the constants, feature policy, lifecycle differences, interoperability, and upgrade path; the client guide covers final discovery, caching, MRTR, retries, and shutdown with runnable examples.

SEP-2484 (accepted) makes merged conformance scenarios a prerequisite for standards-track SEPs reaching final, which elevates the conformance suite from a nice-to-have to spec-gating infrastructure. We run it on every PR to catch regressions early and to stay ahead of new scenarios as the spec evolves.

We read SEPs upstream rather than mirroring them here. Browse the SEP label on modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol when auditing spec coverage.

Examples

A full-featured MCP server for querying crates.io is available as a standalone project: cratesio-mcp. A demo instance is deployed at https://cratesio-mcp.fly.dev -- connect with any MCP client that supports HTTP transport.

The repo includes 33 examples; a selection organized by topic (the full set lives in examples/):

Category Examples
Getting started getting_started -- tools, resources, prompts, stdio transport
Transports http_server, websocket_server, axum_embedding -- mount MCP under /mcp inside an existing axum app
Middleware middleware (transport, per-tool, per-resource, per-prompt, guards), rate_limiting, capability_filtering, tool_selection
Authentication http_auth -- API key, local JWT, and production JWKS resource server; oauth_client -- static tokens, client credentials, interactive authorization code, and custom providers; external_api_auth
Clients client_cli, http_client, http_sse_client
Bidirectional sampling_server, client_handler
Dynamic dynamic_capabilities -- runtime tool/prompt/resource registration
Advanced proxy, resource_templates, structured_output, error_handling, testing
Extensions tasks -- final Tasks extension (SEP-2663) and task ownership, mcp_apps -- typed MCP Apps (SEP-1865)
Real-world weather_server -- external API integration
Macros tool_macro -- #[tool_fn], #[prompt_fn], #[resource_fn]

Clone the repo and the .mcp.json configures example servers automatically:

git clone https://github.com/joshrotenberg/tower-mcp
cd tower-mcp
# Run your MCP agent here - servers will be available automatically

Development

# Format, lint, and test
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace --all-targets --all-features
RUSTDOCFLAGS="-Dwarnings" cargo doc --workspace --all-features --no-deps
cargo test --workspace --doc --all-features

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0