Add Progress Bars and Logging Notifications to Your MCP Server

I’ll explain how these MCP features work with an example using FastMCP and Cursor.

• MCP Progress

• MCP Logging

This video is part of my MCP for developer’s series.

Check out the video on YouTube

Timestamps
0:49 - How MCP Progress Works
1:57 - How MCP Logging Works
3:23 - MCP Progress Example Code Explanation
6:29 - MCP Progress Demo with Cursor
8:25 - MCP Progress Demo with the MCP Inspector
10:10 - MCP Logging Demo
13:53 - MCP Logging VS Application Logging
17:33 - fast-agent MCP Progress Demo

Topics from this week’s video

• Intro

  • Demonstrate how to add progress tracking and logging to an MCP server

  • Part of the MCP for Developers series (playlist includes elicitation, sampling, tools, prompts, resources)

• What Progress Tracking Is

  • Allows MCP servers to report long-running operation progress to clients

  • Uses JSON-RPC notifications such as notification/progress

  • Example workflow:

    • Server sends progress: 1/10 → 2/10 → 3/10 ...

    • Client (e.g., Claude Desktop or Cursor) displays status to the user

• What Logging Is

  • MCP includes log levels: debug, info, warning, error

  • Logs are messages sent from server → client, not internal server logs

• Server Example (Fast MCP)

  • Demo server processes a CSV file listing recipe parameters

  • Simulates making many API requests (Italian meal, Mexican meal, etc.)

  • Each iteration:

    • Logs info messages

    • Updates progress using ctx.report_progress

• Cursor Demonstration

  • Configure vegan-recipes MCP server inside Cursor

  • Cursor shows progress indicator (5, 6, 7, 8…)

  • Logs do not appear → Cursor hasn’t implemented logging yet

• Model Context Protocol Inspector Demo

  • Use npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector to inspect server behavior

  • Run server through inspector with automatic command injection

  • Displays:

    • notification/message logs (info)

    • notification/progress updates (e.g., “3 of 12”)

• Local Logging (Server-Side Only)

  • Useful for logs that should not be sent to the MCP client

  • Fast MCP utility logger via from fastmcp.utilities.logging import get_logger

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Just make the decision. You won’t get it right the first try.

Russell Pollari