Please use Google to research topic 'MCP'

From the Google results, “MCP” is used for several things, but the dominant current topic is:

• MCP = Model Context Protocol – an open standard for connecting AI systems (like LLMs) to external tools, apps, and data sources.

Google’s own AI summary and top links also note two other common meanings:

• Medicaid Managed Care Plan (MCP) – a type of U.S. healthcare coverage
• Metacarpophalangeal joints (MCP joints) – finger/hand joints in anatomy

Below is a concise research summary focused on Model Context Protocol (AI), since that’s what most results are about. If you meant the healthcare or anatomy meaning, tell me and I’ll switch.

1. What the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is

Based on Wikipedia, the official site, and vendor docs in the search results:

• Introduced: by Anthropic in November 2024
• Type: open standard + open‑source framework
• Goal: standardize how AI apps (LLM clients) connect to external tools, systems, and data
• Core idea: instead of each AI tool integration being custom, MCP defines a common protocol so any compliant client can talk to any compliant server.

Typical description from the results:

“The Model Context Protocol is an open standard and open-source framework introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to standardize the way artificial intelligence systems like large language models integrate and share data with external tools, systems, and data sources.” (Wikipedia snippet)

Other docs (Google Cloud, Cloudflare, Cursor) all emphasize:

• Safe tool & data access
• Stronger, more reliable AI behavior
• A consistent way to plug AI into existing infrastructure

2. Basic architecture (from modelcontextprotocol.io + docs)

The official site (modelcontextprotocol.io) and docs linked in search (Cursor, Cloudflare, Google Cloud) describe roughly this structure:

• MCP client

  • An AI application that wants to use tools/data
  • Examples mentioned in search results: Claude, editors like Cursor, integrations in IDEs

• MCP server

  • A process that exposes capabilities over MCP (usually via JSON‑RPC style messages)
  • It can run locally or remotely and knows how to talk to:
    • Databases
    • APIs (GitHub, Jira, CRM, etc.)
    • Filesystems, IDEs, note‑taking apps, cloud services, and so on

• Capabilities exposed by a server (common across docs):

  • Tools – actions the AI can invoke (e.g., “search issues”, “run test suite”)
  • Resources – data the AI can read (e.g., documents, code, tickets)
  • Prompts – predefined prompt templates or workflows guiding the model’s behavior

The client and server communicate using a standard protocol, not a custom per‑integration API.

3. What problem MCP is trying to solve

From the Anthropic announcement, GitHub/Cloudflare/Google Cloud explainers, and many blog/video results:

1. Fragmented integrations

   • Today, each AI product tends to have its own plugin/integration system.
   • MCP aims to be a unified, vendor‑neutral standard.

2. Limited context window

   • LLMs can’t ingest all of your data at once.
   • MCP lets the model pull just‑in‑time context from external resources (e.g., “fetch this file,” “get this ticket,” “retrieve these logs”).

3. Tool orchestration and safety

   • AI agents need to do things (call APIs, modify resources) in a controlled way.
   • MCP provides structured tool definitions and encourages:
     • explicit user consent
     • narrower, well‑scoped operations
     • inspectable logs/traffic (e.g., “MCP Inspector” tool mentioned in search results).

4. Portability and ecosystem

   • A single MCP server can be reused by different clients (Claude UIs, IDEs, other agents), similar to how HTTP APIs are reused by many apps.

4. How MCP is being used (from search results)

From the result list:

• Official resources

  • modelcontextprotocol.io – main spec & docs (“Build an MCP server”, “Architecture overview”, “Example Servers”, “MCP Inspector”)
  • Anthropic blog – “Introducing the Model Context Protocol”
  • GitHub – modelcontextprotocol/ – spec and reference implementations

• Vendor & platform docs

  • Google Cloud: “What is Model Context Protocol (MCP)? A guide” – focuses on using MCP to safely access external data/tools
  • Cloudflare: “What is the