What is the Model Context Protocol?

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard for connecting AI applications to external systems: data, tools and workflows.

  • Introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, now an open standard with SDKs in most major languages.
  • Speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio or Streamable HTTP.
  • Supported by AI assistants, IDEs and agent frameworks from many vendors.
  • Build a server once and every MCP-capable app can use it.

The usual analogy

Laptop
Claude Code

MCP is like USB-C for AI apps. Any USB-C device works with any laptop that has the port. In the same way, any MCP server works with any app that supports MCP, with no custom code for each pair.

MCP doesn't decide which tool to use. That's still the model's job. MCP standardises how tools and context are described, discovered and called.

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