How to Automate Publishing with GitHub Actions ↗

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Editorial Notes

Automating MCP server publishing through GitHub Actions eliminates manual release steps and ensures every tagged release reaches the registry consistently. The guide walks through workflow file configuration, secret management for registry credentials, and trigger conditions for version-based publishing. A common pitfall is misconfiguring the authentication token scope, which produces permissions errors that surface only at publish time rather than during the workflow setup. Read the authentication guide first to understand the credential requirements before wiring up the action.

Original Documentation

Documentation Index#
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

The MCP Registry is currently in preview. Breaking changes or data resets may occur before general availability. If you encounter any issues, please report them on GitHub.

Step 1: Create a Workflow File#

In your server project directory, create a .github/workflows/publish-mcp.yml file. Here is an example for npm-based local server, but the MCP Registry publishing steps are the same for all package types:

name: Publish to MCP Registry

on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"] # Triggers on version tags like v1.0.0

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      id-token: write # Required for OIDC authentication
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      ### Publish underlying npm package:

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v5
        with:
          node-version: "lts/*"

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm run test --if-present

      - name: Build package
        run: npm run build --if-present

      - name: Publish package to npm
        run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

      ### Publish MCP server:

      - name: Install mcp-publisher
        run: |
          curl -L "https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/releases/latest/download/mcp-publisher_$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')_$(uname -m | sed 's/x86_64/amd64/;s/aarch64/arm64/').tar.gz" | tar xz mcp-publisher

      - name: Authenticate to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher login github-oidc

      # Optional:
      # - name: Set version in server.json
      #   run: |
      #     VERSION=${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}
      #     jq --arg v "$VERSION" '.version = $v' server.json > server.tmp && mv server.tmp server.json

      - name: Publish server to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher publish

name: Publish to MCP Registry

on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"] # Triggers on version tags like v1.0.0

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      ### Publish underlying npm package:

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v5
        with:
          node-version: "lts/*"

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm run test --if-present

      - name: Build package
        run: npm run build --if-present

      - name: Publish package to npm
        run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

      ### Publish MCP server:

      - name: Install mcp-publisher
        run: |
          curl -L "https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/releases/latest/download/mcp-publisher_$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')_$(uname -m | sed 's/x86_64/amd64/;s/aarch64/arm64/').tar.gz" | tar xz mcp-publisher

      - name: Authenticate to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher login github --token ${{ secrets.MCP_GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      # Optional:
      # - name: Set version in server.json
      #   run: |
      #     VERSION=${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}
      #     jq --arg v "$VERSION" '.version = $v' server.json > server.tmp && mv server.tmp server.json

      - name: Publish server to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher publish

name: Publish to MCP Registry

on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"] # Triggers on version tags like v1.0.0

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      ### Publish underlying npm package:

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v5
        with:
          node-version: "lts/*"

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm run test --if-present

      - name: Build package
        run: npm run build --if-present

      - name: Publish package to npm
        run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

      ### Publish MCP server:

      - name: Install mcp-publisher
        run: |
          curl -L "https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/releases/latest/download/mcp-publisher_$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')_$(uname -m | sed 's/x86_64/amd64/;s/aarch64/arm64/').tar.gz" | tar xz mcp-publisher

      # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      # TODO: Replace `example.com` with your domain name
      # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      - name: Authenticate to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher login dns --domain example.com --private-key ${{ secrets.MCP_PRIVATE_KEY }}

      # Optional:
      # - name: Set version in server.json
      #   run: |
      #     VERSION=${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}
      #     jq --arg v "$VERSION" '.version = $v' server.json > server.tmp && mv server.tmp server.json

      - name: Publish server to MCP Registry
        run: ./mcp-publisher publish

Step 2: Add Secrets#

You may need to add a secret to the repository depending on which authentication method you choose:

GitHub OIDC Authentication: No dedicated secret necessary.
GitHub PAT Authentication: Add a MCP_GITHUB_TOKEN secret with a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) that has read:org and read:user scopes.
DNS Authentication: Add a MCP_PRIVATE_KEY secret with your Ed25519 private key.

You may also need to add secrets for your package registry. For example, the workflow above needs an NPM_TOKEN secret with your npm token.

For information about how to add secrets to a repository, see Using secrets in GitHub Actions.

Step 3: Tag and Release#

Create and push a version tag to trigger the workflow:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The workflow will run tests, build the package, publish the package to npm, and publish the server to the MCP Registry.

Troubleshooting#

Error Message	Action
“Authentication failed”	Ensure `id-token: write` permission is set for OIDC, or check secrets.
“Package validation failed”	Verify your package successfully published to the package registry (e.g., npm, PyPI), and that your package has the necessary verification information.

Link last verified June 7, 2026. View original ↗

Source: MCP Docs

Link last verified: 2026-02-26