What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI models connect to external tools and data sources. Developed by Anthropic, MCP defines how servers expose tools (with name, description, and JSON Schema input), how clients discover and call them, and supports transports like stdio and HTTP/SSE. Used by Cursor, Claude Desktop, and other AI apps to extend capabilities—e.g., file access, web search, database queries. Each MCP tool has an inputSchema following JSON Schema.