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new-sep

Agents & models

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Updated 10-16 01:17

About this skill

new-sep: SEP traceability YAML scaffolding

You are bootstrapping a sep-NNNN.yaml file for a new SEP in the MCP conformance repo. The output is the requirement-traceability file specified by SEP-2484: a YAML that maps each normative sentence from the SEP's spec diff to a check: ID (testable) or an excluded: reason (not testable). The CLI gets the skeleton; you fill in the rows by reading the spec diff.

Step 0: Pre-flight checks

Before doing anything else, verify GitHub CLI authentication:

gh auth status 2>&1

If this fails, stop immediately and tell the user:

GitHub authentication is required for this skill. Please run gh auth login first, then re-run.

Verify you're running inside the conformance repo:

test -f package.json && jq -r '.name' package.json

The name should be @modelcontextprotocol/conformance. If not, stop and ask the user to cd into the conformance repo first.

Step 1: Parse arguments

Extract from the user's input:

  • sep-number (required): the SEP number, e.g. 2164. This is also the PR number in modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol by convention.

Step 2: Generate the skeleton

Run the CLI:

npm run --silent build
node dist/index.js new-sep <NNNN>

(For development against a non-built source tree: npx tsx src/index.ts new-sep ....)

The CLI writes src/seps/sep-<NNNN>.yaml with sep, spec_url, and two TODO requirements[] rows. Capture the output path from the CLI's Wrote … line and remember it as $YAML.

If the CLI errors with "does not change any docs/specification/draft/*.mdx", the SEP's spec changes landed in a separate PR — ask the user for the spec file path and rerun with --spec-path docs/specification/draft/<path>. Do not guess.

Step 3: Fetch the spec diff

AGENTS.md (lines 64–72) is explicit that severity must come from the spec text itself, not the SEP markdown or the conformance PR description:

gh api "repos/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol/pulls/<NNNN>/files" \
  --jq '.[] | select(.filename | test("^docs/specification/draft/.*\\.mdx$")) | {filename, patch}'

For each file, pull the added (+-prefixed) lines from patch. If patch is truncated for a large file, fall back to fetching the whole file at the PR's head ref:

gh api "repos/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol/contents/<path>?ref=<sep-branch>" \
  --jq '.content' | base64 -d

Step 4: Extract RFC 2119 requirements

Walk the added lines and identify sentences containing the keywords: MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, MAY, OPTIONAL.

Quote the whole sentence, not just the matched line. The matched word may sit inside a bullet point whose lead-in sentence supplies the keyword by inheritance — e.g.:

Servers SHOULD return standard JSON-RPC errors for common failure cases:

  • Resource not found: -32602 (Invalid Params)

The bullet inherits SHOULD. The yaml row should quote the combined obligation: 'Servers SHOULD return standard JSON-RPC errors for common failure cases: Resource not found: -32602 (Invalid Params)' — see src/seps/sep-2164.yaml for the canonical example.

Regex alone is insufficient (this is called out in Issue #243). Read for context: pronouns, "the server", and "such cases" all refer back to the lead-in.

Step 5: Map severity → check vs. excluded

From AGENTS.md:50-56:

Keyword Severity YAML field
MUST / MUST NOT / SHALL / SHALL NOT / REQUIRED FAILURE check: sep-<NNNN>-<slug>
SHOULD / SHOULD NOT WARNING check: sep-<NNNN>-<slug>
MAY / OPTIONAL — no row — skip entirely

MAY / OPTIONAL sentences are noted in Step 4 only so you consciously skip them — they never produce a yaml row.

A row is excluded: when a MUST/SHOULD requirement can't be protocol-observed by the harness. Do not write any excluded: row on your own authority — every exclusion goes through Step 6.

While classifying, sort each MUST/SHOULD row into one of three buckets:

  • check: — observably testable on the wire.
  • clearly-excluded — you're confident it can't be observed (e.g. "clients SHOULD also accept -32002" when the harness only drives servers).
  • borderline — you'd default to check: but observability is questionable. Markers:
    • Internal state — verbs like record, store, associate, track, cache. The harness sees wire traffic, not memory; usually only observable via a downstream row already in your list.
    • UI / human-facing — display, show, render, prompt the user.
    • Precondition phrasing — "Before doing X, the implementation MUST Y" where X is itself another row.

Slug convention: lowercase-kebab, derived from the verb phrase. Examples from sep-2164.yaml: no-empty-contents, error-code. Same id is used for SUCCESS and FAILURE (AGENTS.md:52).

Step 6: Confirm exclusions with the user

Nothing becomes excluded: without sign-off. Two rounds:

Round 1 — clearly-excluded, single batch question. One AskUserQuestion listing all clearly-excluded rows in the question body (slug + one-line reason each). Options:

  • Exclude all as listed (Recommended)
  • Flip all to check:
  • Let me adjust per-row — if chosen, append these rows to round 2.

Skip this round if the bucket is empty.

Round 2 — borderline, one question per row. One AskUserQuestion call with a question per borderline row (loop in batches of 4 if needed). For each:

  • header: the proposed slug
  • question: quote the requirement sentence + your one-line observability concern
  • options (list check: first — it's the default for borderline):
    • check: — keep as a testable check
    • excluded: <reason> — drop to excluded with your stated reason
    • merge into <other-slug> — offer when the row is a precondition for another row already in the list

Apply the answers before writing. For any excluded: outcome, write the reason verbatim into the yaml and add an issue: URL if the user supplies one. A merge outcome means: drop this row, and append its text: to the surviving row's text: separated by / so the traceability isn't lost.

Step 7: Rewrite the YAML

Replace the two TODO rows the CLI generated with one row per extracted requirement. Preserve the CLI's quoting style (single quotes, two-space indent — see src/seps/sep-2164.yaml).

Key order within each row — for check: rows the check: key comes first, then text:, then any optional url:. Scanning the left margin should reveal every check ID without reading the quoted sentences. For excluded: rows the order is text: first, then excluded:, then optional issue: — there's no ID to scan for, so lead with the requirement.

Row order in the file — all check: rows first (in spec-diff order), then all excluded: rows grouped at the bottom, separated from the checks by one blank line. Do not interleave.

requirements:
  - check: sep-NNNN-first-slug
    text: '...'
  - check: sep-NNNN-second-slug
    text: '...'

  - text: '...'
    excluded: 'reason'
    issue: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/conformance/issues/<NNNN>

If a requirement is ambiguous or you're not confident, leave it as a TODO: row rather than guessing — humans review this yaml before scenarios get written.

Also fix the spec_url: the CLI emits the page URL with no anchor. If the requirements you extracted live under a specific spec subsection (e.g. #error-handling), append it.

If a requirement comes from a different spec page than spec_url (the SEP touched multiple .mdx files — the CLI prints these as "PR also changes N other spec file(s)"), give that row a full url: override:

- check: sep-NNNN-slug
  text: '...'
  url: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/draft/other/page#anchor

A row's effective spec reference is row.url ?? file.spec_url.

Write the result back to $YAML.

Step 8: Suggest a host scenario

AGENTS.md prefers fewer scenarios with more checks over one-scenario-per-check. Before telling the user to write a new scenario, look for an existing one the new checks could be folded into.

Determine the suite directory from the requirement subjects ("MCP clients MUST…" → client/, "Servers MUST…" → server/, "authorization servers MUST…" → authorization-server/; a SEP may map to more than one). Then search that directory for scenarios touching the same spec area:

rg -l -i '<domain-term>|<domain-term-2>' src/scenarios/<suite>/ --type ts

Pick 2–3 domain terms from the SEP's subject matter (for a discovery SEP: metadata, well-known; for an auth-response SEP: redirect, callback, pkce). For each hit, pull the scenario's name/description to confirm relevance:

rg -A1 'name:|description:' <hit.ts>

If you find a plausible host, recommend it by path. If nothing fits, say so explicitly — a new scenario file is then the right call.

Step 9: Hand-off

Report to the user, in this order:

  1. Path to the generated yaml.
  2. Row counts: "N check: rows, M excluded: rows" — and note which exclusions the user signed off in Step 6.
  3. Any requirements you left as TODO: and why.
  4. Host-scenario recommendation from Step 8 — either "consider adding these checks to src/scenarios/<suite>/<file>.ts (it already exercises X)" or "no existing scenario covers this area; a new file is appropriate".
  5. Remaining next steps the user owns:
    • add the checks to the host scenario (or create one) under src/scenarios/{client,server,authorization-server}/,
    • register any new scenario in src/scenarios/index.ts (AGENTS.md:48),
    • add a passing example to the everything-client/server and a negative test, per AGENTS.md:74-81.

Do not generate or edit scenario .ts files or touch src/scenarios/index.ts. The skill's scope ends at the yaml plus the recommendation.