Understanding MCP
Imagine building a travel AI assistant. It needs weather data, flight info, hotel availability, and currency exchange. With function calling, you'd write custom code for each API. With MCP (Model Context Protocol), you connect to pre-built, standardized servers that handle everything.
Think of USB. Before USB, every device had its own connector and printers, cameras, keyboards all needed different cables. USB standardized everything: one connector works for all devices. MCP does the same for AI tools. Instead of writing custom integrations for every API, MCP provides one standard protocol that all tools can follow.
MCP architecture: host, client, Server
MCP uses a three-layer architecture where hosts manage clients, and clients connect to servers that provide tools and resources.
Matching exercise: Match MCP concepts
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Function calling vs MCP
Function calling requires custom code per API. MCP standardizes the connection.
Flashcards: Flashcards
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AI prompt: Try it with AI
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Quiz: Quiz
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With function calling, you define every tool in your code (the schema, the implementation, everything). With MCP, tools are provided by external servers. You just connect to a server and it tells you what tools it has. Someone else built the weather tool, the database tool, etc., and you just use them through a standard protocol.
Quiz: Quiz
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Now you understand MCP and how it differs from function calling. Next, we will actually connect to a live MCP server and discover its tools.