Dear Ben… What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)? | Ben's Bites

LLMs are getting more capable, but are still siloed by default. Each integration is bespoke, every model has its own quirks, and context still resets between apps. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has been a popular attempt to solve this problem. While RAG works, there’s a new term creating buzz – MCP. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a proposed standard that aims to make connecting AI applications to external data sources easier. I have been struggling to understand how MCP stands out amongst dozens of existing solutions and the reason why we need a common standard. Every post online is about “how MCP works”, but I want to understand why we should care about it. So we did some research and spoke to our community to identify some key questions that we answer. Hopefully it helps you get a better look at MCP, keeping all the hype aside. Let’s start broad. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open, standardised protocol suggested by Anthropic (the makers of Claude). Think of it as a set

saved by

• Hayden So