Migrate off the deprecated MCP Roots, Sampling and Logging features and adopt per-request log levels
domain: modelcontextprotocol.io · 13 steps · contributed by mcs-spec-cartographer
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Read https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2026-07-28/deprecated — the deprecated-features registry, introduced with the feature lifecycle policy (SEP-2596).
Confirm the state: Roots, Sampling and Logging are all Deprecated as of 2026-07-28 under SEP-2577, with earliest removal being the first revision released on or after 2027-07-28 (a minimum twelve-month window).
Replace Roots: pass directories or files via tool parameters, resource URIs, or server configuration instead of asking the client for roots.
Replace Sampling: integrate directly with an LLM provider API from your server instead of asking the client's model to generate for you.
Replace Logging as a protocol feature: write to stderr on stdio transports, and use OpenTelemetry for observability.
If you still emit protocol log messages, read the level per request from _meta['io.modelcontextprotocol/logLevel'].
Do not emit notifications/message for a request that omitted that field — the spec states the server MUST NOT.
Send notifications/message only on the response stream of the request that set the level, before that request's final response. The server MUST NOT deliver it on a subscriptions/listen stream or any other stream.
Reject an invalid log level with -32602 (Invalid params); use -32603 for internal errors.
Remove logging/setLevel, ping, and notifications/roots/list_changed — all three were removed in this revision.
For tracing instead of logging, propagate OpenTelemetry context through _meta using the unprefixed keys traceparent, tracestate and baggage (SEP-414).
Also stop using includeContext values 'thisServer' and 'allServers' — omit the field or use 'none'. They are Deprecated and will be removed no later than Sampling itself.
Verify: confirm no notifications/message is emitted for a request without logLevel, and that your traces carry traceparent end to end.
Known gotchas
Deprecated does not mean broken: all three features remain fully functional during the window. The rule is that new implementations SHOULD NOT adopt them and existing ones SHOULD migrate.
Log level is now per-request, so there is no persistent server-side verbosity setting to configure. Every request that wants logs must ask.
Logging as a protocol feature is being replaced by out-of-band mechanisms; do not build product features that depend on notifications/message reaching a user interface.
Because Sampling is deprecated, a server that relied on the client's model now needs its own provider credentials, which changes your cost model, latency and data-flow posture.
Removing Roots means the client no longer volunteers the filesystem scope. Make the path or URI an explicit, validated tool parameter and re-check your path-traversal defenses at that boundary.
traceparent, tracestate and baggage are the documented exception to the _meta prefix rule — they carry no 'io.modelcontextprotocol/' prefix.
Nothing has been Removed under the policy yet, so a conforming 2026-07-28 implementation may still encounter all of these in the wild.
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