Introduce a new API for connector discovery

[jaideepr97]

🚀 Describe the new functionality needed

We should introduce a new API that provides access to available connector URLs that allow users to abstract away connection details of MCP servers they want to use. These connectors can then be used with requests using the responses API

Salient API features:

• read-only, non-admin facing
• initially leveled as v1alpha
• Allows discovery of configured connectors and corresponding MCP server details (such as URL, server label etc)
• Allows discovery of tools exposed by a given connector
• Allows discovery of configured MCP registries and filtering of connectors by registry_id (if connector is part of an MCP registry)

Proposed endpoints:
(EDIT)

Method	Path	Query Params	Description	Response Type
GET	/v1alpha/connectors	registry_id (string) — optional include_tools (bool) — optional	List all connectors, optionally filtered by registry. If include_tools=true, embedded tool metadata is included in each connector.	List (optionally expanded with tools)
GET	/v1alpha/connectors/{connector_id}	none	Retrieve metadata for a single connector.	Connector
GET	/v1alpha/connectors/{connector_id}/tools	none	List all tools exposed by a given connector.	List
GET	/v1alpha/connectors/{connector_id}/tools/{tool_name}	none	Retrieve metadata + schemas for a specific tool exposed by the connector.	ConnectorTool
GET	/v1alpha/connectors/registries	none	List available MCP registries.	List
GET	/v1alpha/connectors/registries/{registry_id}	none	Retrieve metadata for a single MCP registry.	MCPRegistry

This API should replace the toolgroups API, and be handled by the core layer of llama stack and would not need its own provider.

💡 Why is this needed? What if we don't build it?

Following the deprecation of toolgroups users will need an equivalent API that will allow them to discover connectors and leverage MCP servers into their agentic workflows using the responses API. Connectors provide a useful abstraction for MCP servers, and MCP registries are going to be prominent ways in which these servers are managed in large scale enterprise settings.

Other thoughts

No response

[leseb]

Do we need /v1alpha/connectors/tools if the tools could be in the response of /v1alpha/connectors?

[jaideepr97]

Do we need /v1alpha/connectors/tools if the tools could be in the response of /v1alpha/connectors?

We probably could do that, but the output could become very verbose if the user is only looking for the list of connectors. They may then want to pick a conenctor and list its tools but that would probably be harder to do if the output has all the unwanted tool info in there as well
Having a separate endpoint would give the user a choice to explicitly ask for a verbose response...maybe the output could be sorted by connector_id to simulate what you're suggesting?

[jaideepr97]

ah maybe you're thinking of using a query param to allow inclusion of tools? something like
GET /v1alpha/connectors?include_tools=true
I think that could work. Updated accordingly, thanks