MCP server monitoring
AI agents fall over quietly when the MCP server behind them stops responding. PingDog connects to your MCP endpoint on a schedule and confirms it can actually list its tools — a real handshake, not just an open port.
What PingDog checks
- A successful connection to the MCP server
- A valid tools/list response within the timeout window
- Alerts the moment the handshake starts failing
The Model Context Protocol is becoming the connective tissue between AI agents and the tools they call. When an MCP server goes down, every agent depending on it degrades — usually silently, because the agent just "can't do that right now." Monitoring the raw port isn't enough; the server has to complete the protocol handshake.
PingDog performs a real protocol-level check: it connects and confirms the server responds to tools/list within the timeout, so you learn about a broken MCP server before your agents do. It's part of the AI-infrastructure monitoring set alongside A2A agents and blockchain RPC.
Anonymous, pay-per-check
Like everything on PingDog, this check needs no account: your key is the account, you pay once at $0.0005 per delivered check in USDC on Base, and nothing renews. A real free tier runs up to 3 monitors at a 5 minutes interval with no payment at all. See how pricing works.
Frequently asked
Does PingDog just ping the port, or actually speak MCP?
It speaks the protocol: it connects and verifies the server returns a valid tools/list response within the timeout, so a process that is listening but wedged is still caught as down.
Why monitor MCP servers specifically?
Because AI agents depending on an MCP server degrade silently when it fails. A protocol-level uptime check turns that silent degradation into an alert.