Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Also known as: MCP

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard defining how AI applications discover and invoke external tools, resources and prompts through a common interface, so an integration built once works across any compatible client.

Before a shared protocol, every AI client needed bespoke integrations with every data source, producing an N×M problem that scaled badly for everyone involved.

An MCP server exposes tools (callable functions), resources (readable data) and prompts (reusable templates) over a transport such as stdio or HTTP.