MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Model Context Protocol is an open standard introduced by Anthropic in late 2024 that lets any LLM connect to any tool through a common interface — like USB for AI agents. Adoption across Claude, OpenAI, and major IDEs has made it the de-facto integration layer in 2026.

Before MCP, every agent platform had its own way of defining tools, and integrations didn't transfer. Build a Slack integration for Claude, redo the work for GPT. MCP standardizes the shape of tool definitions and the wire protocol for calling them.

For operators, the practical implication: MCP servers are reusable across tools. An MCP server for Linear, GitHub, or your internal database works in Claude Code, Cursor, and any other MCP-aware client. The ecosystem of community-maintained MCP servers has grown into the thousands.