# MCP

> The USB-C of agent tooling: a single JSON-RPC interface for connecting any agent to any tool, data source, or service.

_The Agent Protocol Atlas · /protocols/mcp · [JSON](/api/protocols/mcp) · [all The Agent Protocol Atlas](/protocols)_

- **name:** MCP
- **full_name:** Model Context Protocol
- **layer:** capability
- **creator:** Anthropic (now governed under the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation)
- **status:** de facto standard
- **year:** 2024
- **one_liner:** The USB-C of agent tooling: a single JSON-RPC interface for connecting any agent to any tool, data source, or service.
- **spec_url:** https://modelcontextprotocol.io
- **snippet:**

```
{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "tools/call", "params": { "name": "search", "arguments": { "q": "..." } } }
```
- **abbreviation:** MCP
- **also_known_as:** Model Context Protocol
- **canonical_spec_url:** https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25
- **entity_uri:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Context_Protocol
- **taxonomy_layer:** capability
- **sub_layer:** tool-calling
- **protocol_type:** tooling
- **central_problem:** Gives an AI agent a single, uniform interface to call any external tool, data source, or service instead of bespoke per-integration glue.
- **maintainer:** Model Context Protocol project (Anthropic + community), hosted by the Agentic AI Infrastructure Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation
- **governance_body:** AAIF
- **license:** MIT (spec and SDKs)
- **maturity_tag:** production-ready
- **current_spec_version:** 2025-11-25
- **spec_date:** 2025-11-25
- **launch_date:** 2024-11-25
- **last_verified:** 2026-06-15
- **transport:** JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio or Streamable HTTP
- **core_mechanism:** An MCP client (the agent host) connects to one or more MCP servers; servers advertise tools, resources, and prompts, and the client invokes them with typed JSON-RPC calls (tools/list, tools/call). A November 2025 revision adds an experimental async Tasks primitive.
- **discovery_endpoint:** JSON-RPC initialize + tools/list (server-advertised; no fixed URL path)
- **settlement_type:** —
- **adoption_metric:** Hosted under AAIF as a load-bearing project; broad SDK and vendor support across the agent ecosystem
- **notable_adopters:** {"value":"Anthropic","source":"https://modelcontextprotocol.io"}
- **relationships:** {"predicate":"governed_by","target":"aaif","note":"MCP -governed_by-> AAIF (research §2 seed triple)"}, {"predicate":"complements","target":"a2a","note":"A2A complements MCP; MCP handles agent→tool, A2A handles agent→agent"}, {"predicate":"discovered_by","target":"agents-json","note":"agents.txt/agents.json-class discovery files can point agents to MCP endpoints"}
- **ideal_use_case:** Connecting an LLM agent to your data sources, internal tools, or SaaS APIs through one standard interface.
- **when_to_use:** When agents need to take actions or read structured data from tools/services and you want one integration surface instead of N bespoke ones.
- **when_not_to_use:** When you only need an agent to read content (use Layer-1 discovery files like llms.txt), or when the interaction is agent-to-agent coordination (use A2A).
- **code_example:** { "jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "method": "tools/call", "params": { "name": "search", "arguments": { "q": "agentic web" } } }
- **source:** Spec version/date: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25 (latest stable, 2025-11-25). Governance (AAIF hosts MCP): competitive-research-2026-06.md §2.
- **agent_readiness_link:** agent-readiness/mcp
- **layer_legacy:** tool