tasks/get examples under "Task Execution Errors" use "resultType": "task"; prose and schema require "complete" #23
Description
What's wrong
Two example responses in Task Execution Errors show a tasks/get result with "resultType": "task":
specification/2026-07-28/tasks.md:846, in "Example: Task with JSON-RPC execution error"specification/2026-07-28/tasks.md:870, in "Example: Tool call completed with tool error (isError: true)"
specification/draft/tasks.md has the same text at the same line numbers.
Both are tasks/get responses. The section says so (tasks.md:835: "The tasks/get response SHOULD include a statusMessage…"), and the text after the second example calls it "The tasks/get endpoint" (:889).
The normative text says the opposite:
tasks.md:338: "TheresultTypefield MUST be set to"complete"on this object as it is the standard result shape for thetasks/getrequest."tasks.md:102: "Servers MUST NOT setresultTypeto"task"on result types other thanCreateTaskResult."schema/2026-07-28/schema.ts:224andschema/draft/schema.ts:224:GetTaskResulthasresultType: "complete";.
The other tasks/get examples in the same file already use "complete" (:577, :610, :655, :733, :762).
Why it matters
Implementers copy examples. A client that switches on resultType and treats "task" as "this is a CreateTaskResult, start polling" would handle a terminal tasks/get response as a new task handle. A server built from these examples would break the MUST at :338.
Suggested fix (docs only)
--- a/specification/2026-07-28/tasks.md
+++ b/specification/2026-07-28/tasks.md
@@ -843,7 +843,7 @@
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": 4,
"result": {
- "resultType": "task",
+ "resultType": "complete",
"taskId": "786512e2-9e0d-44bd-8f29-789f820fe840",
"status": "failed",
@@ -867,7 +867,7 @@
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": 5,
"result": {
- "resultType": "task",
+ "resultType": "complete",
"taskId": "786512e2-9e0d-44bd-8f29-789f820fe840",
"status": "completed",Apply the same two changes to specification/draft/tasks.md (same line numbers). Nothing normative changes.
Activity
davidscotttufts commentedon Sep 26, 2026
Disclosure per the MCP AI_POLICY.md: this issue was drafted primarily with Claude Code; I reviewed it and checked the cited lines against the spec and schema. The fix is in #25.
docs: tasks/get examples under Task Execution Errors use resultType "…
LucaButBoring commentedon Oct 9, 2026
Apologies for the delay - looks good, thanks for handling this issue 😄