Model Context Protocol (MCP)
An open standard (JSON-RPC) for connecting LLMs and agents to external tools, data, and resources via a uniform client–server interface.
MCP standardizes how models access “tools,” “resources,” and “prompts” through MCP servers, replacing bespoke per-integration glue with one protocol.
Announced by Anthropic in late 2024, it reached broad significance in 2025 as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and the wider ecosystem adopted it, making it the de facto interoperability layer for agentic tool use.