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Intermediate

What is MCP?

Model Context Protocol: a standard way to connect AI to tools and data.

MCP (Model Context Protocol), introduced by Anthropic, is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools, databases, and services — like 'USB-C for AI apps.'

Instead of every AI app building custom integrations, a tool exposes an MCP server describing its capabilities; any MCP-compatible client (Claude, IDEs, agents) can then use it.

MCP servers exist for GitHub, databases, web search, file systems, and thousands of services. It's become the de facto standard for agent tooling.

Key points

  • Open standard for AI ↔ tool connections
  • Created by Anthropic, widely adopted
  • One integration works across many AI apps
  • The backbone of the agent tooling ecosystem