MCP (Model Context Protocol)
MCP is an open protocol that lets language models connect to external tools and data sources through a common interface, rather than a bespoke integration per tool.
MCP standardises how a model discovers what a tool can do and how it calls it. Its practical effect is that a tool written once can be used by any MCP-capable client without rewriting the integration.
Related terms
- Tool use
- Tool use is a model’s ability to call external functions — searching, running code, querying a database — and incorporate the results into its answer.
- Function calling
- Function calling is a model feature that returns a structured request to run a named function with specific arguments, instead of returning prose.
- AI agent
- An AI agent is a language model given tools and a goal, which decides for itself which actions to take and in what order until the goal is met.
More on retrieval and agents
See the full glossary, read the guides, or put it into practice in the prompt builder.