MCP. Model Context Protocol

MCP is the most important piece of infrastructure for autonomous AI to land in the last two years. Before MCP, every AI tool integration was custom code, written once, useful nowhere else. After MCP, connecting a model to a new data source or tool is a one-line config change. This section walks the protocol from "what is it" to "how do I build my own" in about 90 minutes of reading.

Read in order the first time through. Each page builds on the previous ones, and together they form a complete walk from "never heard of it" to "I can build my own."

• What is MCPThe elevator pitch + who built it→
• AnatomyTools, resources, prompts, servers, clients→
• Transportsstdio, SSE, HTTP, when to use each→
• Building serversServer lifecycle and patterns→
• ClientsWho speaks MCP today→
• SecurityPermissions, sandboxing, prompt injection→
• DirectoryCurated MCPs worth trying→

modelcontextprotocol.iomodelcontextprotocol.io, the official spec

anthropic.comAnthropic introducing MCP