An Empirical Study of Model Context Protocol Applications

A study of 1,723 MCPApps mined from GitHub found that while 85.2% configure servers using files and 81.1% use an official SDK, only 37.2% gate tool execution behind a blocking approval step, leaving most apps able to invoke any enabled tool unconditionally. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) standardizes LLM-tool communication but leaves application-side conventions unspecified, leading to divergent practices in human oversight.

Computer Science Software Engineering Submitted on 28 Jul 2026 Title:An Empirical Study of Model Context Protocol Applications View PDF /pdf/2607.25635 HTML experimental https://arxiv.org/html/2607.25635v1 Abstract:The Model Context Protocol MCP standardizes how large language model applications communicate with external tools, but leaves the application side unspecified: unlike traditional dependencies resolved through package managers, developers integrating MCP servers face no conventions for configuration, communication, or human oversight. This ecosystem is also under-researched, with existing work focused on servers rather than the applications consuming them. We conduct a large-scale study of 1,723 MCPApps mined from GitHub. We first derive MCPAppTax from a representative sample, then use an LLM-assisted pipeline to apply it across the full dataset, characterizing server integration across configuration, SDK use, and human-in-the-loop mechanisms. Our results show that the ecosystem has converged on some practices but not others: most MCPApps configure servers using files 85.2% and use an official SDK 81.1% to communicate with servers, yet no naming convention has emerged for configuration files. Human oversight diverges most, logging 90.8% and enable/disable controls 77.2% are common, but only 37.2% gate tool execution behind a blocking approval step, leaving the LLM able to invoke any enabled tool unconditionally in most MCPApps. References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer What is the Explorer? https://info.arxiv.org/labs/showcase.html arxiv-bibliographic-explorer Connected Papers What is Connected Papers? https://www.connectedpapers.com/about Litmaps What is Litmaps? https://www.litmaps.co/ scite Smart Citations What are Smart Citations? https://www.scite.ai/ Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv What is alphaXiv? https://alphaxiv.org/ CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers What is CatalyzeX? https://www.catalyzex.com DagsHub What is DagsHub? https://dagshub.com/ Gotit.pub What is GotitPub? http://gotit.pub/faq Hugging Face What is Huggingface? https://huggingface.co/huggingface ScienceCast What is ScienceCast? https://sciencecast.org/welcome Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower What are Influence Flowers? https://influencemap.cmlab.dev/ CORE Recommender What is CORE? https://core.ac.uk/services/recommender arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs https://info.arxiv.org/labs/index.html .