AI Foundationspredict · compress · act

concepts → Protocol

Protocol

Model Context Protocol

also called MCP

frontieras of 2026-095 connections

a standard way to plug tools into a model, so every model need not learn every tool

Where it sits

The prism has six jobs across and eight layers down. Its primary cell isno mode × L6. Hatched cells cannot exist — a GPU does not learn, an institution does not infer.

What must come first — and what it unlocks

Left to right is reading order, derived from the prerequisite_of edges. Nothing here is hand-ordered: the diagram is the graph.

Tool useModel Context Protocolnothing depends on it yet — a leaf in the reading order

Before it: Tool use

What kind of thing it is — and what it is made of

It is made of: MCP server, MCP client, Interoperability.

Where to read it

The chapter that introduces it, and any chapter that uses it again.

36A Port for Toolsact 8 · The Agent Infrastructure

Where it comes from

standardModel Context Protocol SpecificationAnthropic · 2024

Every connection

All 5 edges touching this node, grouped by relation family — the sections above are highlights from this list. Colours match the relation families inthe atlas.

Structure · 3
has as a partMCP serverSystem
has as a partMCP clientSystem
has as a partInteroperabilityProperty
Order · 1
requiresTool useMechanism
Flow · 1
is used byTool useMechanism

This page is a projection of one node in src/data/concepts.ts. It has no prose file of its own — 230 declared edges produce all 236 of these pages. Edit an edge and both endpoints change.