What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
mediumAnswer
- MCP (Anthropic, 2024) is an open protocol that standardizes how LLM applications connect to external data sources and tools.
- An 'MCP server' exposes resources (files, database rows, docs) and tools (function calls) via a JSON-RPC interface; an 'MCP client' (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.) can discover and invoke them.
- Solves the N×M integration problem: instead of every LLM app wiring up every data source directly, both sides speak MCP.
- Growing ecosystem — official servers for GitHub, filesystem, Postgres, Slack, and hundreds of community servers.
Check yourself — multiple choice
- Same as function calling
- Open JSON-RPC protocol standardizing LLM ↔ tools/resources; MCP servers expose capabilities, MCP clients discover and call them — solves N×M integrations
- Only for Anthropic
- Impossible to integrate
MCP: open protocol for LLM ↔ tools/resources — standardizes integrations across the ecosystem.
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