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MCP is a protocol, not a plugin store. The Model Context Protocol defines how AI applications connect to software that provides tools, data, and reusable prompts. It does not operate a universal catalog, publish integrations, or decide how a particular app presents them.
What is MCP?
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open protocol for communication between AI applications and servers that provide capabilities. A useful analogy is a shared connector language: compatible applications and servers can use it to describe and exchange capabilities without MCP prescribing one product’s interface.
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The protocol standardizes the exchange, not the complete AI experience. Its architecture documentation says MCP focuses on context exchange; it does not dictate how an application uses language models or manages the context it receives. See the MCP architecture guide.
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- Host: The AI application a person uses. It creates and manages MCP clients.
- Client: The part of the host that communicates with a server. In the documented architecture, each client maintains a connection to its corresponding server.
- Server: Software that makes capabilities available to a client through MCP.
The client can discover what the server offers and use the protocol’s operations to exchange information or request an available capability. The protocol describes this communication; the host remains responsible for how those capabilities are presented and used.
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What can an MCP server provide?
MCP servers can expose three kinds of capability: tools, resources, and prompts. The architecture guide describes these categories.
- Tools are functions that a model may invoke, such as querying a database. The tools specification says implementations can choose how tools appear in their interface; MCP does not require one interaction design.
- Resources are data that an application can provide as context, such as a database schema.
- Prompts are reusable templates for interactions.
For example, a server connected to a database might offer a query tool, a schema resource, and a reusable prompt for asking questions about the data. Those are capabilities exposed by that server—not entries in a protocol-owned storefront.
Why isn’t MCP a plugin store?
A store or marketplace is a product layer for listing, discovering, or installing integrations. MCP defines communication between compatible software instead. It does not, by itself, publish listings, rank integrations, manage installation, or dictate how the host presents access to a server. A host may create its own directory or installation flow, but that is the host’s product choice rather than a feature guaranteed by MCP.
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What does MCP specify—and what does it leave to the host?
The official documentation describes MCP as having a data layer based on JSON-RPC 2.0 and a transport layer that carries communication and authorization details. In documentation for the 2026-07-28 specification revision, the listed transports include STDIO for local process communication and Streamable HTTP for remote server communication. These are protocol details, not a requirement that every host use the same interface or workflow. See the architecture guide and the specification.
The MCP project also includes software around the protocol: its repository describes the specification, protocol schema, SDKs, development tools, and reference server implementations. Those components help developers work with MCP, but they are not themselves a universal plugin store. See the MCP project repository.
Quick Recap
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- MCP defines: How compatible clients and servers describe and exchange capabilities.
- A host decides: Which servers to connect to, how available capabilities appear, and how the application uses the context or tool results.
- A product marketplace, if one exists: How that product lists, distributes, or helps users install integrations.
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