Is MCP Good Yet?

The MCP protocol version 2026-07-28 eliminates the initialize handshake and session ID, mandating version and capabilities in every request and requiring opt-in via mcp_2026_07_28; the default stays at 2025-06-18. SDK 2.x uses this version for Anthropic-hosted CLI/VS Code, while Bedrock, Vertex, and Foundry keep the v1 protocol. Tools such as Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, Grok, and OpenCode provide elicitation via JSON-schema forms or URLs but lack a documented Tasks extension. Code Mode is experimental, disabled by default, and loads schemas dynamically through tool_search rather than embedding full tool definitions.