mcp-diff

Schema lockfile and breaking-change detector for MCP servers.

The problem: MCP servers serve tool schemas at runtime. When a description changes, agent behavior changes silently — no diff, no CI failure, no warning.

The solution: Commit a mcp-schema.lock to git. Fail CI on breaking changes.

Install

pip install mcp-diff

Usage

# Snapshot your server's current schema
mcp-diff snapshot python3 my_server.py

# Check for breaking changes (exits 1 if found)
mcp-diff check python3 my_server.py

# Human-readable report (always exits 0)
mcp-diff report python3 my_server.py

Example output

mcp-diff check python3 my_server.py

[BREAKING]  read_file: Tool 'read_file' was removed.
[BREAKING]  search_files.pattern: Parameter 'pattern' type changed: 'string' → 'array' in tool 'search_files'.
[WARNING]   search_files: Tool description changed.
              was: 'Search for files matching a pattern.'
              now: 'Search files. Use glob patterns.'
[INFO]      write_file: Tool 'write_file' was added.

Found 2 breaking, 1 warning, 1 info changes.

Change severity

CI integration (GitHub Actions)

- name: Snapshot MCP schema
  run: mcp-diff snapshot python3 my_server.py
  # Commit mcp-schema.lock to your repo

- name: Check for breaking changes
  run: mcp-diff check python3 my_server.py
  # Exits 1 and fails the build if breaking changes are detected

Lockfile format

{
  "version": "1",
  "created_at": "2026-03-22T03:00:00Z",
  "command": "python3 my_server.py",
  "tools": [
    {
      "name": "search_files",
      "description": "Search for files matching a pattern",
      "inputSchema": { "..." : "..." }
    }
  ]
}

Commit mcp-schema.lock to git. The diff in your PR is the schema diff.

Options

mcp-diff snapshot [--output PATH] <command...>
mcp-diff check    [--lockfile PATH] [--json] [--no-color] <command...>
mcp-diff report   [--lockfile PATH] [--no-color] <command...>

Exit codes

Part of the MCP developer toolkit

• agent-friend — schema quality linter
• mcp-patch — AST security scanner
• mcp-pytest — testing framework
• mcp-snoop — stdio debugger
• mcp-diff — schema lockfile and breaking-change detector

Source: github.com/0-co/mcp-diff