Quick Fix: My MCP Tools Were Showing as Write Tools in ChatGPT Dev Mode

I recently enabled ChatGPT developer mode and noticed something weird: all my dev.to MCP server tools were showing up as write tools, even though they're purely read-only operations that just fetch data.

Turns out there are additional MCP tool annotations I wasn't using that fix this issue.

The Fix permalink

I added readOnlyHint and openWorldHint annotations to all my tools:

server.registerTool("get_articles", {
  description: "Get articles from dev.to",
  annotations: {
    readOnlyHint: true,
    openWorldHint: true
  },
  // ... rest of tool definition
});

Here's the PR

The https://github.com/nickytonline/dev-to-mcp/pull/4 repository on GitHub

The Result permalink

Now my tools properly show up as read-only in ChatGPT dev mode instead of being mislabeled as write tools.

Thanks to my coworker @wasaga for pointing me toward that part of the MCP docs!

If you're building MCP servers, check out the available tool annotations to make sure your tools are properly labeled.

Want to check out the dev.to MCP server? 👇 Also, don't forget to give it a star!

The https://github.com/nickytonline/dev-to-mcp repository on GitHub

Until the next one peeps!

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Photo by Anton Savinov on Unsplash