Techniques & Methods
Model Context Protocol (MCP) in plain English.
Also known as: MCP,model context protocol
The one-sentence version
The open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external tools and data sources.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard, originally published by Anthropic in late 2024, for connecting AI assistants to tools and data sources. Think of it as the "USB-C of AI integrations." An AI client (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT) talks to MCP servers; each server exposes tools, resources, and prompts the AI can use. The protocol solves the N×M integration problem — instead of every AI building custom integrations for every tool, every AI speaks MCP, every tool speaks MCP. By mid-2026 there are 5,000+ public MCP servers (GitHub, Slack, Notion, Linear, Stripe, Postgres, file systems) and ~100M installs. If you ship a developer tool in 2026, you should ship an MCP server.