What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)? Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard developed by Anthropic that defines how AI models communicate with external tools, APIs, and data sources. Think of it as a universal adapter — instead of building custom integrations for every AI model and every tool, MCP gives you one standard protocol that works everywhere. Launched in late 2024 and now widely adopted across the AI ecosystem, MCP is quickly becoming the foundation for building production-grade AI agents. It’s supported by Claude, and increasingly integrated into frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, and Dify. Why MCP Matters for Developers Before MCP, every AI agent framework had its own way of connecting to tools. If you switched from LangChain to CrewAI, you had to rewrite all your tool integrations.…