MCP Gateway v0.6.0 - 2025-08-22 - Security, Scale & Smart Automation

This release delivers 118 commits and 50+ resolved issues with transformative improvements to extensibility, intelligence, and enterprise operability. Building on v0.5.0's security foundation, v0.6.0 introduces revolutionary plugin architecture, AI agent integration, and comprehensive observability.

🏆 Enterprise Scale & Automation Achievements

This release transforms MCP Gateway into a true enterprise platform with:

• 🔌 Plugin Framework – Comprehensive extensible architecture with pre/post hooks and external plugin support
• 🤖 A2A Agent Integration – Native AI agent support for OpenAI, Anthropic, and custom agents as tools
• 📊 OpenTelemetry Observability – Vendor-agnostic observability with Phoenix integration and distributed tracing
• 🔄 Bulk Import System – Enterprise-grade bulk operations with 200-tool capacity and rate limiting
• 💾 Real-time Log Viewer – Built-in log monitoring with advanced filtering and export capabilities
• 🏷️ Comprehensive Tagging – Tag-based organization and filtering across all entities
• ⚡ Performance Optimizations – Enhanced caching, connection improvements, and mutation testing

✨ Highlights

• 🔌 Plugin Framework – Complete extensible architecture with manifest-based configuration and external plugin support (#319, #313, #773)
• 🤖 A2A Agent Integration – AI agents as native tools with comprehensive metrics and admin UI support (#298, #792)
• 📊 OpenTelemetry Observability – Full vendor-agnostic instrumentation with Phoenix integration (#735, #727)
• 🔄 Bulk Import System – Enterprise-grade bulk tool import with rate limiting and validation (#737, #798)
• 💾 Admin Log Viewer – Real-time log monitoring with SSE streaming and advanced filtering (#138, #364)
• 🏷️ Tagging System – Comprehensive tag support across all entities with filtering (#586)
• 🚀 MCP Protocol Enhancements – Elicitation support and enhanced tool annotations (#708, #774)

🚨 Important Updates

• Plugin Architecture – New plugins/config.yaml configuration system with enable/disable flags
• A2A Configuration – Comprehensive A2A feature flags for controlling agent functionality
• Enhanced Observability – Full OpenTelemetry integration with distributed tracing capabilities
• Performance Improvements – Mutation testing, async performance testing, and caching optimizations
• Virtual Server Fixes – Critical fixes for virtual servers not working as advertised in v0.5.0

🆕 Added

🔌 Plugin Framework & Extensibility

• Comprehensive Plugin System (#319, #313) – Full plugin framework with manifest-based configuration and lifecycle management
• Pre/Post Request Hooks – Plugin hooks for request/response interception and modification across all operations
• Tool Invocation Hooks (#682) – Dedicated tool_pre_invoke and tool_post_invoke plugin hooks for tool-specific processing
• Plugin CLI Tools (#720) – Command-line interface for authoring, packaging, and managing plugins
• Phoenix Observability Plugin (#727) – Built-in Phoenix integration plugin for ML monitoring and observability
• External Plugin Support (#773) – Load external plugins with comprehensive configuration management

🤖 A2A (Agent-to-Agent) Integration

• Multi-Agent Platform (#298, #792) – Complete integration for OpenAI, Anthropic, and custom AI agents
• Agent as Tools – A2A agents automatically exposed as tools within virtual servers for seamless integration
• Protocol Versioning – A2A protocol version support ensuring compatibility across different agent implementations
• Flexible Authentication – Support for API keys, OAuth, bearer tokens, and custom auth schemes for agents
• Comprehensive Metrics – Full metrics collection for agent interactions, performance tracking, and usage analytics
• Admin UI Integration – Dedicated A2A management tab in admin interface with full CRUD operations

📊 OpenTelemetry Observability

• Vendor-Agnostic Observability (#735) – Complete OpenTelemetry instrumentation across the entire gateway stack
• Phoenix Integration (#727) – Built-in Phoenix observability plugin for ML monitoring and model performance tracking
• Distributed Tracing – Request tracing across federated gateways, MCP servers, and A2A agents
• Metrics Export – Comprehensive metrics export to OTLP-compatible backends (Jaeger, Zipkin, etc.)
• Performance Monitoring – Detailed performance metrics for tools, resources, agents, and plugin operations

🔄 Bulk Operations & Enterprise Scale

• Bulk Tool Import (#737, #798) – Enterprise-grade bulk import system supporting up to 200 tools per batch
• Intelligent Rate Limiting – Built-in rate limiting for bulk operations (10 requests/minute) with backoff strategies
• Batch Processing Engine – Efficient batch processing with progress tracking and error recovery
• Import Validation – Comprehensive validation during bulk import operations with detailed error reporting
• Export Capabilities (#186, #185) – Granular configuration export/import via UI & API for migration scenarios

💾 Admin UI Log Viewer

• Real-time Log Monitoring (#138, #364) – Built-in log viewer with live streaming via Server-Sent Events
• Advanced Filtering – Filter by log level, entity type, time range, and full-text search with regex support
• Export Capabilities – Export filtered logs to JSON or CSV format for external analysis
• In-memory Buffer – Configurable circular buffer (1MB default) with intelligent size-based eviction
• Color-coded Severity – Visual indicators for debug, info, warning, error, critical levels with theme support
• Request Tracing – Track logs by request ID for debugging complex distributed operations

🔐 Security Enhancements

• OAuth 2.0 Support (#799) – Complete OAuth authentication support in gateway edit functionality
• Well-Known URI Handler (#540) – Configurable handlers for security.txt, robots.txt, and other standard endpoints
• Enhanced Security Headers (#533, #344) – Additional configurable security headers for Admin UI protection
• Header Passthrough Security (#685) – Improved security validation for HTTP header passthrough operations
• Bearer Token Management (#705) – Option to completely disable bearer token authentication for specific deployment scenarios

🏷️ Tagging & Metadata System

• Universal Tag Support (#586) – Comprehensive tags for tools, resources, prompts, gateways, and A2A agents
• Tag-based Filtering – Advanced filtering and search capabilities by tags across all entity types
• Tag Validation – Input validation and editing support for tags with autocomplete functionality
• Metadata Tracking (#137) – Creator and timestamp metadata for servers, tools, resources with audit trails

🔄 MCP Protocol Enhancements

• MCP Elicitation Support (#708) – Implementation of MCP elicitation protocol (v2025-06-18) for enhanced interactions
• Streamable HTTP Virtual Server Support (#320) – Complete virtual server support for Streamable HTTP transport
• SSE Keepalive Configuration (#690) – Configurable keepalive events for SSE transport with connection health monitoring
• Enhanced Tool Annotations (#774) – Fixed and improved tool annotation system with better UI integration

🚀 Performance & Infrastructure

• Mutation Testing (#280, #256) – Comprehensive mutation testing with mutmut for ensuring test quality and coverage
• Async Performance Testing (#254) – Dedicated async code testing and performance profiling capabilities
• Database Caching Improvements (#794) – Enhanced caching strategies with database as cache type for better performance
• Connection Optimizations (#787) – Improved connection handling, authentication decoding, and resource management

🐛 Fixed

🚨 Critical Bug Fixes

• Virtual Server Functionality (#704) – Fixed virtual servers not working as advertised in v0.5.0, now fully operational
• Tool Invocation Errors (#753, #696) – Fixed tool invocation returning 'Invalid method' errors across all transports
• Streamable HTTP Issues (#728, #560) – Fixed translation feature connection problems and tool listing issues
• Database Migration (#661, #478, #479) – Fixed database migration issues during doctest execution and deployment
• Resource & Prompt Loading (#716, #393) – Fixed resources and prompts not displaying in Admin Dashboard

🔧 Tool & Gateway Management

• Tool Edit Screen Issues (#715, #786) – Fixed field mismatch and MCP tool validation errors in edit interfaces
• Duplicate Gateway Registration (#649) – Fixed bypassing of uniqueness check for equivalent URLs
• Gateway Registration Failures (#646) – Fixed MCP Server/Federated Gateway registration issues and error handling
• Tool Description Display (#557) – Fixed cleanup of tool descriptions including newline removal and text truncation

🚦 Connection & Transport Issues

• DNS Resolution Issues (#744) – Fixed gateway failures with CDNs/load balancers and improved DNS handling
• Docker Container Issues (#560) – Fixed tool listing when running inside Docker containers with proper networking
• Connection Authentication – Fixed auth header issues and improved connection reliability across all transports
• Session Management (#518) – Fixed Redis runtime errors with multiple concurrent sessions

🖥️ UI/UX Improvements

• Tool Annotations Display (#774) – Fixed annotations not working with improved CSS specificity and rendering
• Escape Key Handler (#802) – Added proper event handler for escape key functionality across modals
• Content Validation (#436) – Fixed content length verification when headers are absent or malformed
• Resource MIME Types (#520) – Fixed resource mime-type always storing as text/plain instead of actual type

🔄 Changed

🏗️ Architecture & Protocol Updates

• Wrapper Functionality Redesign (#779, #780) – Major redesign of wrapper functionality for improved performance and reliability
• Integration Type Migration (#452) – Removed deprecated "Integration Type: MCP", now supports only REST for cleaner architecture
• Transport Protocol Updates – Enhanced Streamable HTTP support with complete virtual server integration
• Plugin Configuration System – New plugin configuration system with enabled/disabled flags and dependency management (#679)

📊 Metrics & Monitoring Enhancements

• Enhanced Metrics Tab UI (#368) – Updated metrics tab with virtual servers overview and top 5 performance tables
• Comprehensive Metrics Collection – Improved metrics for A2A agents, plugins, tools, and all system components
• Performance Monitoring – Better performance tracking across all system components with detailed instrumentation

🔧 Developer Experience Improvements

• Enhanced Error Messages (#666, #672) – Improved error handling throughout main.py and frontend with actionable guidance
• Better Validation (#694) – Enhanced validation for gateway creation and all API endpoints with clear feedback
• Documentation Updates – Improved plugin development workflow and comprehensive architecture documentation

⚙️ Configuration & Environment

• A2A Configuration – Comprehensive A2A configuration options with feature flags:

  MCPGATEWAY_A2A_ENABLED=true              # Enable/disable A2A features
  MCPGATEWAY_A2A_MAX_AGENTS=100            # Maximum number of agents
  MCPGATEWAY_A2A_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=30        # HTTP timeout for agent calls
  MCPGATEWAY_A2A_MAX_RETRIES=3             # Retry attempts for failed calls
  MCPGATEWAY_A2A_METRICS_ENABLED=true      # Enable metrics collection

• Plugin Configuration – New plugins/config.yaml system with enable/disable flags and plugin management

• Security Configuration – Enhanced security configuration validation and startup health checks

📦 Upgrade Instructions

1. Update your package:

   pip install --upgrade mcp-contextforge-gateway==0.6.0

2. Review new configuration options in .env:

   cp .env.example .env
   # Check new A2A configuration settings
   # Review plugin configuration options
   # Verify OpenTelemetry settings if using observability

3. Configure plugins (optional):

   # Review plugins/config.yaml for available plugins
   # Enable/disable plugins as needed for your deployment

🌟 Release Contributors

This release represents a quantum leap in MCP Gateway's capabilities, with the largest feature set and contributor base to date!

🏆 Top Contributors in 0.6.0

• Mihai Criveti (@crivetimihai) - Release coordination, A2A architecture design, plugin framework implementation, OpenTelemetry integration, and comprehensive testing infrastructure
• Manav Gupta (@manavgup) - Transport-translation enhancements, MCP eval server implementation, reverse proxy functionality, and protocol optimizations
• Madhav Kandukuri (@madhav165) - Tool service refactoring, database optimizations, UI improvements, and performance enhancements across the stack
• Keval Mahajan (@kevalmahajan) - Plugin architecture design, A2A catalog implementation, authentication improvements, and security enhancements

🎉 New Contributors

Welcome to our growing community of first-time contributors who joined us in 0.6.0:

• Multiple Community Contributors - Various developers contributed to OAuth implementation, bulk import features, UI enhancements, and bug fixes across the entire codebase
• Plugin Ecosystem Contributors - Developers who helped establish the plugin development framework and created initial plugin examples
• Testing & Quality Contributors - Contributors who enhanced our mutation testing, performance testing, and overall code quality initiatives

💪 Returning Contributors

Thank you to our dedicated contributors who continue to drive MCP Gateway forward:

• Core Architecture Team - Continued contributions to system architecture, plugin framework design, and A2A agent integration
• UI/UX Team - Ongoing enhancements to admin interface, log viewer implementation, and overall user experience
• Testing & Quality Team - Comprehensive testing improvements, mutation testing implementation, and quality assurance initiatives
• Documentation Team - Enhanced documentation for new features, plugin development guides, and deployment instructions

This release showcases the power of open-source collaboration at scale, bringing together expertise in distributed systems, AI/ML integration, enterprise security, and developer experience to create a truly revolutionary MCP gateway platform.

🔗 Resources

• 📚 Docs: https://ibm.github.io/mcp-context-forge/
• 🐳 Container: ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:v0.6.0
• 🐍 PyPI: mcp-contextforge-gateway
• 📈 Full changelog: Compare v0.5.0…v0.6.0

Beta Software Notice: MCP Gateway is in early beta. Expect breaking changes between minor versions. Use only with trusted upstream MCP servers. Please refer to SECURITY.md and our Roadmap for more info.