MCP

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It is an open standard that lets AI clients connect to external tools, data sources, and prompts through a single, consistent interface. Anthropic introduced MCP in late 2024, and it has since been adopted by Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, VS Code, Windsurf, and a growing list of community clients. An MCP server is a small program that exposes three things: tools the model can call, resources the client can read, and prompts that help users accomplish common tasks. An MCP client discovers those capabilities and decides when to invoke them. Transport is usually stdio for local servers or Server-Sent Events for remote ones. For developers, MCP removes the need to build a custom integration for every API. You write one server, and any compatible client can use it. For users, it means AI assistants can securely access files, databases, SaaS tools, and web services without each client reinventing the wheel.

Published 2026-06-12

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