MCPHub Docs
Tool Playground

Discovering Tools

How MCPHub fetches and displays the tools available on your MCP servers.

Discovering Tools

How tool discovery works

MCPHub calls tools/list on the server using the MCP JSON-RPC protocol:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "tools/list",
  "params": {},
  "id": 1
}

The server responds with an array of tool definitions, each containing:

  • name — the tool identifier
  • description — human-readable description
  • inputSchema — JSON Schema describing the tool's parameters

MCPHub renders each tool as a card in the Tools tab.

Caching

Tool lists are cached in Redis for 5 minutes per server. This prevents excessive load on your MCP server from multiple dashboard users.

When cached, a Cached badge appears in the top-right corner of the Tools tab, showing the cache age.

Refreshing the tool list

Click Refresh in the toolbar to invalidate the cache and fetch a fresh tool list. This requires admin or owner role.

Use this after:

  • Adding or removing tools from your server
  • Updating a tool's schema or description
  • Deploying a new version of your server

Use the search box at the top of the Tools tab to filter tools by name or description. The filter is client-side and instant.

No tools found

If a server returns an empty tool list:

  • Confirm the server is running and healthy (check the Health tab)
  • Verify the server actually implements tools/list — not all MCP servers expose tools
  • Check the server's auth config if it returns 401 errors

Previous

Tool Playground

Next

Invoking Tools

On this page