Introduction
As we studied in earlier articles, tools are an important component of Agentic frameworks, allowing LLMs to interact with the world and extend their capabilities. However, enabling tool use when you have many different API becomes troublesome as any tool needs to be:
- Manually tracked and fed to the LLM
- Manually described (including its expected JSON schema)
- Manually updated whenever its API changes
To make this process easier to implement for any given Agentic framework, Anthropic developed the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems.
Using MCP, AI applications like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini can connect to multiple diffrent things including :
- Data sources (e.g. local files, databases)
- Tools (e.g. search engines, calculators)
- Workflows (e.g. specialized prompts)
It enables it by requirements to access key information and perform tasks.
Think of MCP like a USB-C port for AI applications. Just as USB-C provides a standardized way to connect electronic devices, MCP provides a standardized way to connect AI applications to external systems.
