MCP (Model Context Protocol)

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard developed by Anthropic that defines how AI models communicate with external tools, data sources, and services. Before MCP, every AI application that needed to call an API, query a database, or use an external tool required a custom integration written specifically for that AI provider. MCP solves this by creating a universal protocol: any tool that implements an MCP server can be used by any AI model that implements an MCP client, without writing custom glue code for every combination. The protocol defines three capability types that an MCP server can expose: tools (callable functions the AI can invoke, like running a database query), resources (data the AI can read, like a file or API response), and prompts (reusable prompt templates with typed parameters). This means you build your integration once and it works immediately with Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and every other MCP-compatible AI client — today and as the ecosystem grows.

Since Anthropic released MCP in November 2024, the ecosystem has grown to over 2,500 community-contributed servers in the official registry, covering databases, developer tools, business APIs, and data sources (Anthropic, 2025). Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf all support MCP natively, making it the fastest-growing standard for AI tool integration.

An MCP server exposes a set of tools (callable functions), resources (readable data), and prompts (reusable prompt templates) that any MCP-compatible client can discover and use. Claude, Claude Code, and a growing ecosystem of AI applications now support MCP, making it the fastest way to extend AI capabilities without writing model-specific integration code.

At The AI How, we cover MCP from basics to advanced server development. Our tutorials show you how to build MCP servers in Python and TypeScript, connect Claude to real databases and APIs via MCP, and use the growing ecosystem of community MCP servers for common integrations.