MCP Protocol

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard by Anthropic (late 2024) unifying model interaction with tools and data: a “universal plug” for the ecosystem. Client-server architecture; three primitives: tools (model operations), resources (data for reading), and prompts (user templates). Value proposition – “build once, use everywhere”. Limitations: request-response invocation, event-driven architecture is built on top; 5 MCP servers can consume ~55k context tokens – mitigated by progressive disclosure.

Related: [Dynamic Tool Loading], [Proactive Tool Discovery], [MCP Security Risks]