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governance decisions

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Authorization Interest Group mission and venue

The Authorization Interest Group is the single chartered venue for MCP authorization work. It brings MCP implementers, identity-provider vendors, and security practitioners together to surface real-world authorization problems, decide whether they are worth solving and whether they belong in MCP, and give authors a reliable place to present SEPs, ext-auth drafts, prototypes, and deployment results for cross-topic feedback.

Authorization IG in-scope topics

In scope: deployment experience reports with real authorization servers, extension interoperability reports pairing independent implementations, enterprise identity integration with IdPs (Okta, Entra ID, Ping, Keycloak), delegated and agentic access use cases, scope and permission granularity (per-tool, per-resource scopes), credentials for non-HTTP transports (stdio, WebSocket), client identity and registration (Dynamic Client Registration, Client ID Metadata Documents, software statements), threat modelling for authorization attack surfaces, SEP and draft feedback, and problem statements and requirements.

Authorization IG out-of-scope topics

Out of scope: accepting SEPs or extensions (IG gives feedback but sponsorship/acceptance follows SEP guidelines), authentication of end users to MCP clients (host concern, not protocol), transport security (TLS, mTLS, certificate handling, belongs to Transports WG), server identity/provenance/trust signalling (belongs to Server Card/Registry), end-user product configuration walk-throughs (IG discusses patterns, not step-by-step setup).

Valid authorization HTTP status codes in MCP

The Authorization Interest Group scope includes valid authorization HTTP status codes in MCP as part of authorization-related standards and specs, though the specific codes are not enumerated in this charter document.

Authorization IG meeting structure

Authorization IG Call occurs every 2 weeks for 45 minutes with an agenda-driven format. A facilitator opens an agenda thread in #auth-ig ahead of each call. Anyone may request a slot by replying with the topic, the ask (feedback, decision, awareness), and time needed. Facilitators agree the agenda and hand out time slots before the call. If the agenda is thin, the call is cancelled and the slot is kept for next time.

Authorization IG discussion channel consolidation

All authorization discussion happens in #auth-ig channel on the MCP Contributors Discord, with one Discord thread per topic (for example a SEP number, a draft name, or a deployment pairing). There are no per-topic channels. Meeting agendas and notes live in the channel's per-call agenda thread, with a link cross-posted to GitHub Discussions.

Authorization proposals path from problem to SEP

When a problem pitch is presented to the Authorization IG, two standing questions are asked before investment in a SEP: (1) Is this a problem worth solving? Is there real deployment demand, and is the gap in the protocol rather than in one product? (2) Does it belong here? Is the right home the core specification, an official extension in ext-auth, an unofficial extension, or an upstream standards body? When the answer to both is yes, the proposer drafts a SEP or ext-auth pull request, finds a sponsor, and returns to the call to present progress and demos as the draft matures.

Authorization IG deliverables and success metrics

The Authorization IG's outputs are authorization SEPs and ext-auth specifications with recorded IG feedback, reference implementations and conformance scenarios, interoperability and deployment reports, and published meeting notes. The IG stewards the modelcontextprotocol/ext-auth repository where authorization extension specifications land via PR. Success looks like authorization proposals reaching Core Maintainer review with cross-topic feedback already incorporated, and shipped extensions accumulating independent interoperable implementations.

Authorization IG related groups and boundaries

The Authorization IG relates to: Security IG (token-audience confusion, issuer validation, account-linking risks), Transports WG (authorization specified at HTTP transport level; changes to transports affect credential carry), Agents WG (delegated/on-behalf-of access and consent for multi-agent chains), Server Card WG/Registry (client and server identity, discovery metadata, trust establishment), and SDK Maintainers (SDKs ship auth client implementations; IG findings inform cross-SDK auth ergonomics).

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