Recently I wrote a post explaining the idea of an enterprise MCP Gateway, and another on key consideration for securing MCP servers. Today, I’d like to talk a bit more about the role of an MCP Registry or MCP Catalog as part of delivering MCP as an enterprise service within your organization. As part of our work on Obot, we needed to come up with a practical, scalable approach for providing an MCP registry. The more we dug in, the clearer it became: a well-designed registry is the backbone of secure, discoverable, and compliant AI infrastructure.
Here’s what we’ve learned about what an MCP registry is, why it’s essential, how organizations can build one, and what’s happening in the broader open-source community. I’ll also go into a little bit of detail on the MCP Registry project within the MCP community, though that is a bit more about standards than actually building your own enterprise registry.
What Is an MCP Registry?
An MCP registry is a centralized catalog of all the MCP servers available within an organization. It serves as a directory of IT approved MCP servers that users can evaluate and provision for their own use cases. Think of it like public MCP directories – like Pulse MCP or MCP.so – but with enterprise-grade security, governance, and discoverability.
A robust enterprise MCP registry includes:
- What MCP servers are approved within the enterprise
- Who created them or is responsible for them
- What they do (with live documentation and tool descriptions)
- Who can access them (with role-based permissions)
- How to connect (with unique URLs for each client or tool)
Why Build an MCP Registry?
Think of MCP servers as a new internet of capabilities for AI agents and user chat clients. Without a registry, that internet is basically offline and running on local machines not available to your organization. AI infrastructure quickly becomes fragmented. Teams spin up their own MCP servers, integrations go undocumented, and IT loses visibility. The result? Shadow AI, data leaks, compliance headaches, and wasted time as users struggle to find or trust the right endpoints.
A well-implemented MCP registry solves these problems by providing:
- Centralized control: IT can publish, manage, and secure every MCP in one place.
- Frictionless discovery: Users find the right AI tools quickly and confidently.
- Auditability: Every access and change to an MCP server can be logged for compliance.
- Scalability: Onboarding new MCPs becomes a repeatable, secure process.
- Flexibility: Both internally hosted and third party MCP servers can be added and managed
How to Build an MCP Registry
1. Choose the Right Platform
An MCP registry can stand alone or be part of a broader MCP Gateway. When we started building an MCP registry, we realized that it worked best when it was connected with other features like access control, MCP hosting, an MCP Proxy, and more. We built all of that into the Obot MCP Gateway, and made it open-source. With the right platform, the registry is a key component of your MCP delivery strategy.
2. Define Metadata Standards
A registry is only as useful as the information it holds. For each MCP, it’s important to track:
- Name and description
- Owner/maintainer
- Endpoint URL(s)
- Supported models and capabilities
- Documentation
- Trust level (IT-verified, experimental, etc.)
- Access policies (who can use it, and how)
3. Automate Onboarding
When you have 20 MCP servers you can manage them through a UI. But as you scale, a GitOps workflow works much better: teams submit a pull request with a new MCP’s metadata, which triggers automated review and, once approved, adds it to the registry.
4. Enforce Access and Security
Every MCP in the registry should be behind a proxy that enforces strict authorization policies. The registry acts as the gatekeeper—no one connects to an MCP without going through the gateway, which checks permissions and logs every request.
5. Keep the Registry Up to Date
Regular reviews help prune unused MCPs, update documentation, and verify trust levels. The registry should be a living part of the AI ecosystem, not a static list.
The Registry’s Role in the MCP Gateway
The registry is the heart of the MCP gateway. It powers:
- The user catalog: Employees browse, search, and connect to MCPs they’re authorized for.
- Connection management: The gateway generates unique, secure URLs for each user and client.
- Policy enforcement: Access controls and audit logs are tied directly to registry entries.
- Monitoring and analytics: Usage stats, health checks, and compliance reporting all flow from the registry.
Without a strong registry, the gateway is just a proxy. With it, you have a true control plane for enterprise AI.
Open-Source Standards: The MCP Project Registry
There’s also important work happening in the MCP Project’s official registry repository. The community is actively defining open standards and reference implementations for MCP registries, making it easier for organizations to adopt best practices and ensure interoperability.
The MCP Project’s registry work focuses on:
- Standardizing metadata schemas for MCP entries
- Providing open-source tooling for managing, validating, and publishing MCP registries
- Enabling federation and discovery across organizations
- Ensuring security and compliance from day one
Aligning with these standards means your registry will be future-proof and compatible with the broader ecosystem. You can see an excellent talk on the registry from the MCP Dev Summit hosted in May of 2025.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize the development of a standard MCP registry for your organization
- Define your metadata schema
- Choose a gateway platform (like Obot)
- Automate onboarding and access control
- Make your registry the single source of truth for AI integrations
A well-built MCP registry is foundational for safe, scalable AI adoption. If you want to see what an MCP registry looks like, take a look at Obot Chat and explore some public MCP servers.
