The MCP Census MCP Server

by mcpcensus Your server? Claim it

answering

The MCP Census is answering right now. Last checked 5 min ago. It exposes 15 tools.

Vet any MCP server before you depend on it. Stamp: PASS, REVIEW, or BLOCK.

Uptime history 47 days of history · worst day 0%

47 days agonow

50.0%

Uptime 24h

92 of 184 checks

Tools

read from the server

107 ms

Response time

average over 24h

open, no key

Access

streamable-http

What changed 2

Every tool that appeared, vanished or quietly changed what it asks for. Recorded since 4 September 2026. No other catalogue keeps this.

4 Sep 2 tools appeared census_audit_config, census_changes

The MCP Census does not always answer

Over the last week it answered 50.0% of our checks. We check every 15 minutes, so you hear about the next outage within the hour — not from your users.

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 5 min ago.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add census --transport http https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "census": {
      "url": "https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.census]
url = "https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp"

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "census": {
      "url": "https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "census": {
      "url": "https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

This server publishes 1 more address. The block above uses the one we reach during checks; the full list is under Endpoints below, and the author may intend a particular one for your client.

Available tools 15

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

census

census_audit_config

Audit a whole MCP client config in one call (.mcp.json, claude_desktop_config.json, .cursor/mcp.json, .vscode/mcp.json, Codex config.toml text). Resolves every entry without guessing (url → remote_url, npx → npm package, uvx → PyPI package) and returns one PASS / REVIEW / BLOCK / UNKNOWN verdict per entry under a built-in policy, plus CENSUS-AUDIT/1 text, valid_until_epoch and exit_code (1 on any BLOCK). UNKNOWN is never upgraded to PASS. Cost 1 credit per config per UTC day; keyless callers get one config of ≤25 entries per IP per day. Not a malware scan; PASS is not a sandbox. Strip env/headers before sending.

census_changes

The Census change feed (CENSUS-CHANGES/1): observed transitions across every server — server_new, remote_down, remote_up, tools_changed, health_change, verified_change, security, endpoint_moved, registry_status, spec_era_change. Cursor-paginated: pass next_cursor back as since. Filter by events, server_names or namespace_domain. Only real transitions, never 'still fine'. Unmetered in v1; poll hourly. Not a malware scan.

census_coverage

Public transparency report (same payload as GET /v1/coverage). Unmetered. Live D1 census/identity/remote/protocol/adoption/pipeline counts plus method notes — never invents completeness percentages or a brand_audit punch list.

census_credits

Show remaining Census credits for this API key (wallet after the UTC-month grant). Unmetered. Without a key, returns anonymous unique-per-day remaining — not a wallet.

census_lookalikes

Contested identity for one exact server_name: official_for, name_collision_count, and up to 10 other census server_name values sharing the same namespace brand or tail. Never invents lookalikes. Cost 1.

census_lookup

Get the live health verdict for one MCP server by its exact registry name (e.g. 'io.github.owner/name'). Returns stars, last-push recency, gone/archived/deprecated flags, name-collision count, and a fact-based health verdict (healthy | issues | unknown).

census_policy_list

List the exact immutable Preflight v1 built-in policy objects, canonical ruleset, and policy digests. Unmetered.

census_preflight

Evaluate one exact MCP server under a documented built-in install policy. Returns PASS, REVIEW, or BLOCK with evidence reasons, freshness, digests, and explicit limits. This is a first gate, not a security audit. refresh=if_stale requires x-api-key.

census_recent

Newest MCP servers by real first_seen_at (same payload as GET /v1/recent). Unmetered. Only rows with a known first-seen date — never invents or guesses discovery times. Optional limit 1–50 (default 20).

census_search

Search MCP servers by keyword or partial name (e.g. 'github', 'postgres'). Returns ranked matches with health/trust. Also returns: resolved_query (auto typo fix), disambiguate (when unsure), known_brand (we recognize a strong product but it has no official MCP — e.g. CodeRabbit), research (watchlist/confirmed_absent). Prefer official_match=true rows. Never invent servers.

census_stamp

Census stamp for one exact MCP server under a built-in policy. Same input as census_preflight. Returns the preflight body plus compact CENSUS-STAMP/1 text and stamp_json. Cost matches preflight. Never connect without a stamp. PASS is not a malware scan or permission review.

census_stats

Ecosystem headline numbers from the live census (same payload as GET /v1/stats). Unmetered. Returns total servers, healthy/issues counts, popular (gh_stars>=1000), remote-capable count, github-linked count, and captured_at. No invented metrics.

census_watch_list

List active per-server watches for this API key. Requires x-api-key.

census_watch_subscribe

Subscribe this agent (or a human email) to alerts for ONE specific MCP server. Fires only on real observed changes: remote_down, remote_up, health_change, verified_change, security. Requires x-api-key. Prefer webhook_url (https) so your agent can receive POST callbacks; email optional. Returns a watch id + HMAC secret (X-Census-Signature: sha256=…). Free tier: 5 watches; pro: 50.

census_watch_unsubscribe

Deactivate a watch by id. Requires x-api-key that owns the watch.

Endpoints

URL	Transport	State	Latency	Checked
https://mcpcensus-lookup.jaco-veldsman.workers.dev/mcp	streamable-http	answering	79 ms	5 min ago
https://api.mcpcensus.com/mcp	streamable-http	answering	109 ms	5 min ago

Alternatives to The MCP Census

same job, measured the same way

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Monitor

by agentexchange-tooldrift

Check if an MCP server tool changed or hides injection patterns before you trust it.

3 tools answering

Crawl Census

by taylorsmithgg

Ask before you fetch: will this domain serve your crawler, refuse it, or charge it?

7 tools answering

The MCP Census — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can The MCP Census do?

It exposes 15 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: census_audit_config, census_changes, census_coverage, census_credits, census_lookalikes, census_lookup and 9 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →

Is The MCP Census working right now?

We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 92 of 184 checks got a reply (50.0%), average response time 107 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.

How do I connect The MCP Census?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.

Does The MCP Census need an API key?

No. The MCP Census completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 15 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.

How fast is The MCP Census?

It answers our handshake in 107 ms on average, which is faster than 82% of all working MCP servers we measure. That puts it in the quick quarter of the ecosystem. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.