In late 2024, Anthropic open-sourced the Model Context Protocol (MCP). What started quietly has quickly become one of the most important building blocks of the AI ecosystem.
What MCP Is Not
First, the misconceptions: MCP is not an AI model. It's not a new LLM framework either. MCP is a communication protocol — a standardized bridge between AI assistants and the outside world.
What It Does
Imagine telling Claude "read this file." Claude can't access the filesystem on its own. But through an MCP server:
- It can read files
- Connect to databases
- Make API calls
- Control a browser
All of this securely, with permission, over a standard protocol.
Why It Matters
Standardization. Previously every AI tool built its own integration system. With MCP, a server written once works across all compatible clients (Claude, Cursor, VS Code GitHub Copilot, etc.).
Ecosystem. Thousands of MCP servers exist today — from databases to code analysis, browser automation to memory management.
The future. For AI assistants to be truly useful, they need tools. MCP is the infrastructure that provides them.
Getting Started
To write your own MCP server:
npm install @modelcontextprotocol/sdk
Then the simplest server:
import { Server } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/index.js";
import { StdioServerTransport } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/stdio.js";
const server = new Server({ name: "my-server", version: "1.0.0" }, {
capabilities: { tools: {} }
});
// Add your tools here
See my memory-bank-MCP source code for a real-world example.
