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Chapter C · 8 pages · ~115 min

What is MCP?

Understand how MCP standardizes connections between AI applications and capabilities, then reason about roles, message flow, security boundaries, and operational tradeoffs.

Start the first lesson →Chapter index

What you will be able to do

  • Explain what MCP standardizes and what remains the application's responsibility
  • Trace the roles and lifecycle of an MCP host, client, and server
  • Distinguish MCP tools, resources, and prompts by purpose and control flow
  • Sketch discovery and invocation flows without depending on one SDK
  • Evaluate transports, authentication, permissions, trust boundaries, and failure modes
  • Decide when MCP is preferable to a direct API integration

Lessons in this topic

  1. 01Interoperability, not magic13m
  2. 02Hosts, clients, and servers14m
  3. 03Tools, resources, and prompts14m
  4. 04From discovery to invocation15m
  5. 05Worked case: docs server16m
  6. 06Transport, auth, and trust15m
  7. 07Operations, versioning, and tradeoffs15m
  8. 08Mastery checklist and next steps13m