Skip to content

Update docs to include tool renaming guide #1623

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
tommaso-moro merged 2 commits into from
Dec 16, 2025
Merged

Update docs to include tool renaming guide #1623

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
3e0ceb3
update docs
tommaso-moro Dec 16, 2025
cb3088f
Update docs/tool-renaming.md
tommaso-moro Dec 16, 2025
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions CONTRIBUTING.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ These are one time installations required to be able to test your changes locall
- Run linter: `script/lint`
- Update snapshots and run tests: `UPDATE_TOOLSNAPS=true go test ./...`
- Update readme documentation: `script/generate-docs`
- If renaming a tool, add a deprecation alias (see [Tool Renaming Guide](docs/tool-renaming.md))
6. Push to your fork and [submit a pull request][pr] targeting the `main` branch
7. Pat yourself on the back and wait for your pull request to be reviewed and merged.

Expand Down
42 changes: 42 additions & 0 deletions docs/tool-renaming.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
# Tool Renaming Guide

How to safely rename MCP tools without breaking existing user configurations.

## Overview

When tools are renamed, users who have the old tool name in their MCP configuration (for example, in `X-MCP-Tools` headers for the remote MCP server or `--tools` flags for the local MCP server) would normally get errors.
The deprecation alias system allows us to maintain backward compatibility by silently resolving old tool names to their new canonical names.

This allows us to rename tools safely, without introducing breaking changes for users that have a hard reference to those tools in their server configuration.

## Quick Steps

1. **Rename the tool** in your code (as usual, this will imply a range of changes like updating the tool registration, the tests and the toolsnaps).
2. **Add a deprecation alias** in [pkg/github/deprecated_tool_aliases.go](../pkg/github/deprecated_tool_aliases.go):
```go
var DeprecatedToolAliases = map[string]string{
"old_tool_name": "new_tool_name",
}
```
3. **Update documentation** (README, etc.) to reference the new canonical name

That's it. The server will silently resolve old names to new ones. This will work across both local and remote MCP servers.

## Example

If renaming `get_issue` to `issue_read`:

```go
var DeprecatedToolAliases = map[string]string{
"get_issue": "issue_read",
}
```

A user with this configuration:
```json
{
"--tools": "get_issue,get_file_contents"
}
```

Will get `issue_read` and `get_file_contents` tools registered, with no errors.