Maintaining Your Stack
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Maintaining Your Stack
MCP servers need attention like any other dependency. Things that go wrong:
API changes break servers. Services update their APIs. Server code that worked six months ago may throw errors today. When a server starts failing mysteriously, check whether the underlying service changed. Sometimes there’s a newer version of the server package that handles it.
Credential rotation. API keys expire or get rotated. If a server stops working and was fine before, check your credentials. Add a reminder when you generate an API key to revisit it before it expires.
Version drift. Server packages get updates that add tools, fix bugs, or change behaviour. Running npm outdated in the directory where you’ve installed servers (or checking npm for packages you’re using via npx) will show you what’s behind.
Unused servers. Review your stack every few months. If you haven’t used a server’s tools in weeks, remove it. The configuration entry costs you nothing, but the cognitive overhead of maintaining a mental map of what’s available adds up.