Bug/Feature Request: Node 26 fetch HTTP/2 SSE stream buffering hangs MCP connections

[Starefossen]

Title

Bug/Feature Request: Node 26 fetch HTTP/2 SSE stream buffering hangs MCP connections

Body

(Note: This issue was investigated and drafted with the help of Google Antigravity / Gemini 3.1 Pro during a debugging session).

The Issue

When running MCP SDK clients (such as mcporter) on Node.js 26.4.0, all Server-Sent Events (SSE) connections fail to initialize and eventually time out with errors like Invalid response body, expected a web ReadableStream.

Root Cause Analysis

Node 26 upgraded its native fetch implementation (backed by undici) to enable HTTP/2 by default. There appears to be a stream buffering regression in undici when handling SSE over HTTP/2. As a result, the initial connection chunks (specifically the endpoint URI required by the MCP client) are buffered and never flushed to the client's ReadableStream, causing the connection handshake to stall indefinitely.

Evidence & Workaround

• Failure: On Node 26.4.0, standard MCP SSE connections hang completely.
• Success: By overriding the global fetch dispatcher to force HTTP/1.1, the streams flow instantly and 100% of the MCP server connections succeed.

Here is the exact shim that resolves the issue locally:

import { setGlobalDispatcher, Agent } from "undici";

// Force HTTP/1.1 to bypass the Node 26 HTTP/2 SSE streaming bug
const agent = new Agent({
  allowH2: false
});
setGlobalDispatcher(agent);

Proposed Solution

While the root cause lies upstream in Node.js / undici, the MCP SDK could protect its users from this breaking change:

1. Enforce HTTP/1.1 for SSE: Explicitly configure the fetch transport layer to use HTTP/1.1 (allowH2: false) when running in a Node.js environment, as SSE over HTTP/2 in Node is currently unstable.
2. Expose Transport Config: Alternatively, expose the underlying fetch request initialization/dispatcher options in the SDK so users can inject custom undici agents when needed.