1.13.0 (2026-04-22)

Features

Add MCP prompts support via Markdown files - @DaleSeo #715

Apollo MCP Server now supports MCP prompts. Prompts are reusable templates that guide AI models through multi-step workflows using your GraphQL tools.

Each prompt is a Markdown file in a prompts/ directory with YAML frontmatter for metadata (name, description, arguments) and a template body with {{argument}} placeholders. The server loads prompts at startup and serves them via the prompts/list and prompts/get MCP methods. No configuration changes are needed — the server automatically detects the prompts/ directory.

Add optional instructions for MCP initialize - @DaleSeo #722

Operators can set a top-level instructions value in the server configuration, or supply it through APOLLO_MCP_INSTRUCTIONS, to describe how models should use this server's tools and resources. The server returns that string in the MCP initialize response so clients can surface it to the model, consistent with the protocol's optional instructions field.

Add per-operation MCP tool annotation overrides - @DaleSeo #726

Users can now configure MCP tool annotations per operation via overrides.annotations in the config file. Each entry maps an operation name to annotation hints (title, read_only_hint, destructive_hint, idempotent_hint, open_world_hint) that are merged with auto-detected defaults. Additionally, idempotent_hint is now auto-set to true for queries and open_world_hint is auto-set to true for all operations.

Add trace_id to log output for distributed trace correlation - @DaleSeo #728

Log lines emitted within an OpenTelemetry-traced span now include a trace_id=<hex> prefix, allowing operators to correlate logs with distributed traces in observability tools such as Jaeger and Grafana. Startup messages and other events outside a span are unaffected.

Fixes

Fix aarch64 musl installer fallback - @DaleSeo #698

The install script previously blocked installation on aarch64 Linux systems with older glibc versions, even though a musl binary is now available for that target. This change removes the block, allowing ARM64 musl systems to fall back to the musl binary just like x86_64 systems.

The installer script is now testable via source without side effects, and a new test-install.sh validates architecture detection and download URL logic across OS, CPU, and libc combinations.

Fix config hot reload crashing server on invalid config - @DaleSeo #718

The config hot-reload feature was supposed to keep the server running when an invalid config file was saved, but instead the server would crash because it cancelled the running instance before validating the new config. The new config is now validated before the server is stopped, and if validation fails, the error is logged and the server continues running with the previous configuration.

Fix misleading error when APOLLO_KEY is missing - @DaleSeo #723

When APOLLO_KEY was not set, the server incorrectly reported "Missing environment variable: APOLLO_GRAPH_REF" instead of APOLLO_KEY. This was a copy-paste bug in GraphOSConfig::key() that referenced the wrong constant in its error path.

Accept the scp JWT claim for OAuth scope validation - @DaleSeo #729

Previously, the MCP server only read the RFC 9068 scope claim when validating OAuth tokens. Okta emits scopes as the non-standard scp claim, which caused otherwise-valid tokens from those providers to be rejected as having insufficient scopes. The server now falls back to scp when scope is absent.