claude mcp add writes 'type: stdio' that /doctor rejects as invalid schema

Summary

claude mcp add writes a "type": "stdio" field into MCP server configs that /doctor then rejects with "Does not adhere to MCP server configuration schema".

Steps to reproduce

# Add an MCP server using the official CLI
claude mcp add my-server --scope project -- /path/to/my-server

# Check what it wrote
cat .mcp.json
# Output includes "type": "stdio"

# Run doctor
claude doctor
# Error: mcpServers.my-server: Does not adhere to MCP server configuration schema

Expected behavior

Either:

1. claude mcp add should NOT write the "type" field (since it's inferred from command vs url), OR
2. /doctor should accept "type": "stdio" as valid

Actual behavior

claude mcp add --scope project writes:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/path/to/my-server",
      "args": ["--flag", "value"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

/doctor rejects this as invalid schema.

Workaround

Manually remove the "type" field from the config file. The MCP server connects and works fine regardless — only /doctor reports it as an error.

Additional context

• Also discovered that /doctor walks up the directory tree merging .mcp.json files from parent directories, but reports errors against the project-level .mcp.json path even when the error is from a parent directory's config. This made debugging very confusing.
• Claude Code version: 2.1.87 (native)
• OS: macOS Darwin 25.3.0