Clients, servers, tools, resources, prompts, transports, capability negotiation, authorization, and safe execution.
For a small example, a server offers current weather for a named city. Define the tool schema, validate input, return structured content, and inspect the client-server exchange.
An assistant needs searchable engineering runbooks. Expose scoped resources and search tools, declare capabilities, authenticate transport, and test failures and permissions.
Initializing Interactive Playground...
Predict whether a successful protocol handshake is enough to authorize a consequential tool.
The starter deliberately follows a tempting but flawed assumption: Treating protocol compatibility as trust
Check: The browser checks pass and you can name the failure mechanism before opening the explanation.
Failing starter lab
Return the sorted intersection of client and server capability names.
Run the incomplete starter before opening hints. Use the first wrong output or failed check to form a repair hypothesis.
Explanations after each answer · 80% to pass · Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Chapter 1 of 4 · Core
Model Context Protocol (MCP) standardizes how an AI application connects to external capabilities. The host is the user-facing AI application. It creates a client for each server connection, manages user consent and model context, and enforces application policy. A server exposes a focused capability such as files, a database, source control, or a business API.
MCP messages use JSON-RPC semantics. A connection begins with initialization and capability negotiation so each side knows which protocol revision and features are supported. Requests have IDs and receive results or structured errors; notifications do not expect a response.
The protocol standardizes discovery and invocation, but it does not make a server trustworthy. Authentication, authorization, data minimization, sandboxing, and approval remain deployment responsibilities.
Two free references selected for Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Primary sources and free technical reading for Model Context Protocol (MCP).
The current official protocol definition covering lifecycle, transports, capabilities, and server primitives.
Official conceptual documentation for hosts, clients, servers, and data-flow boundaries.
Official SDKs, examples, schemas, and protocol development repositories.