Dynamic tool discovery in MCP

Say your WhatsApp MCP server’s WhatsApp authentication expires, and you need to re-authenticate. We want to hide the getWhatsAppChatById tool until the user re-authenticates. MCP allows you to dynamically change the list of available tools at runtime.

When the MCP server detects that the authentication has expired, it can send a notifications/tools/list_changed message to notify the MCP client that the list of tools has changed. The MCP client can then call tools/list to get the updated list of tools.

MCP allows you to send a notifications/tools/list_changed message from the MCP server to the MCP client to notify it that the list of available tools has changed. This is useful for dynamic tool discovery, where the MCP server can add or remove tools at runtime.

The MCP client can then call tools/list to get the updated list of tools. This allows the MCP server to dynamically change its capabilities without requiring the MCP client to reconnect or reinitialize.

Here’s what that would look like in our WhatsApp MCP server:

That’s it! The TypeScript SDK handles the notifications/tools/list_changed message for you, so you don’t need to worry about the details. You just call disable() on the tool, and the LLM client will automatically update its list of available tools.

When the user re-authenticates, you can re-enable the tool by calling enable():

Use cases for dynamic tool discovery

Dynamic tool discovery is particularly useful in scenarios where:

• Authentication state changes: Hide tools that require authentication when credentials expire
• Feature availability varies: Show different tools based on user permissions or subscription tiers
• Resource availability changes: Hide tools that depend on external services when those services are unavailable
• Context-dependent tools: Show tools that are only relevant in certain contexts (e.g., only show file operations when a project is open)

By dynamically adjusting the available tools, you can provide a cleaner, more intuitive experience for users without cluttering their tool list with unavailable options.