modelcontextprotocol / modelcontextprotocol/typescript-sdk

[v2] Should raise error at build time if zod outputSchema is not consistent with the structuredContent type

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v2
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Avg merge
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Description

What happened?

I created a tool that outputs a structured content like:

  server.registerTool(
    'ping',
    {
      description: 'Returns a string pong with a timestamp',
      outputSchema: z.object({data: z.string()}) // <---- Wrong return type, should be simply z.string()!
    },
    async () => {
      const str = `Pong at ${new Date()}`
      return {
        content: [{ type: 'text', text: str }], // It seems to be added automatically by the library, but typescript complains if only structuredContent is present
        structuredContent: str
      };
    }
  );

Using only static analysis, we can directly see that this won't work, since outputSchema expects an object but structuredContent outputs a string… and indeed, at runtime this produces an error. Yet, I'd love this kind of error to be catched at build time, with a proper Typescript error.

What did you expect?

An error.

Code to reproduce
  server.registerTool(
    'ping',
    {
      description: 'Returns a string pong with a timestamp',
      outputSchema: z.object({data: z.string()}) // <---- Wrong return type, should be simply z.string()!
    },
    async () => {
      const str = `Pong at ${new Date()}`
      return {
        content: [{ type: 'text', text: str }], // It seems to be added automatically by the library, but typescript complains if only structuredContent is present
        structuredContent: str
      };
    }
  );
SDK version

2.0.0

Area

Server

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the server.registerTool entry point and trace how outputSchema and structuredContent are typed and validated in the TypeScript SDK. Reproduce the shown mismatch, then inspect nearby type definitions and existing checks to determine how valid structured outputs are represented. Done means this mismatch produces a TypeScript error at build time without breaking valid tool registrations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
api, backend-api-design
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
50/100

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