What do the stateless core and header routing mean for gateways?

Why does statelessness matter?

Earlier versions needed a handshake and a session. Gateways had to keep sessions sticky or rebuild them.

Now any request can land on any instance, so gateways scale horizontally like ordinary HTTP proxies.

What can a gateway do with the new headers?

Mcp-Method names the operation, such as a tool call. Mcp-Name names the tool or resource.

A gateway can match policy, apply rate limits and write audit records from headers alone.

Does a gateway still need to read the body?

For routing and metering, no. For content checks such as secret masking or injection screening, the body still matters.