# Model Context Protocol (MCP) **Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/mcp/ **Website:** https://modelcontextprotocol.io **APIs profiled:** 17 Model Context Protocol is an open, JSON-RPC 2.0 protocol from Anthropic that standardizes how AI applications (hosts) connect to external systems via servers that expose tools, resources, and prompts. MCP is positioned as "a USB-C port for AI applications" and has become the de-facto integration layer for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Visual Studio Code, and a growing ecosystem of agent runtimes. This topic repo catalogs the canonical specification, the official multi-language SDKs, the reference server collection, community registries (Smithery, Pulse MCP, Naftiko Sandbox), and major MCP-aware clients, plus the vocabulary, JSON Schema, JSON-LD, and example payloads needed to reason about the protocol. ## Kin Score — 23.1 / 100 (emerging) Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 23.1). | Facet | Score | |---|---| | Discoverability | 61.1 | | Contract Quality | 23.9 | | Governance | 25.0 | | Contract Governance | 25.0 | | Operational Transparency | 28.9 | | Developer Ergonomics | 21.4 | | Commercial Clarity | 0.0 | | Access Clarity | 0.0 | ## Agent readiness — 4.1 (human-only) | Dimension | Value | |---|---| | Spec Presence | no | | Agentic Access | no | | Reversibility Documented | no | | MCP Server | no | | Auth Clarity | no | | Idempotency | no | | Error Semantics | no | | OpenAPI Examples | no | | Rate Limit Signal | no | | Event Surface Described | no | | Agent Skills | no | | Well Known Catalog | no | | Consent Identity | no | | Agent Card | near-conformant | | Dry Run Mode | no | ## APIs (17) - **MCP Specification** — The authoritative protocol definition for the Model Context Protocol, maintained at modelcontextprotocol.io and in the modelcontextprotocol/ specification GitHub repository. The... - **MCP TypeScript SDK** — Official TypeScript SDK published as @modelcontextprotocol/sdk on npm. Dual-purpose library for building MCP servers and clients on Node.js, Bun, and Deno. Supports Standard Sch... - **MCP Python SDK** — Official Python SDK published as `mcp` on PyPI. Includes the FastMCP high-level framework with decorators for tools, resources, and prompts; low-level server primitives for prod... - **MCP Java SDK** — Official Java SDK for building MCP servers and clients on the JVM. Maintained in the modelcontextprotocol/java-sdk repository. - **MCP Kotlin SDK** — Official Kotlin SDK for MCP servers and clients targeting Kotlin and Android runtimes. - **MCP C# SDK** — Official C# SDK for .NET, maintained in collaboration with Microsoft. - **MCP Swift SDK** — Official Swift SDK for MCP servers and clients on Apple platforms. - **MCP Rust SDK** — Official Rust SDK for MCP servers and clients. - **MCP Reference Servers** — Canonical collection of reference MCP server implementations maintained by the project. The active servers (Everything, Fetch, Filesystem, Git, Memory, Sequential Thinking, Time... - **MCP Inspector** — Developer tool for testing and debugging MCP servers. React-based web UI plus Node.js proxy, launched with `npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector` and accessible at http://localho... - **Official MCP Registry** — Community-driven, Anthropic-maintained registry that functions as an app store for MCP servers. Allows developers to publish server definitions and clients to discover them. Cur... - **Smithery** — Third-party MCP server registry and hosted runtime. Catalogs community-built MCP servers, generates installation snippets for clients like Claude Desktop and Cursor, and can hos... - **Pulse MCP** — Third-party MCP directory and news site. Maintains a sub-registry API that implements the Generic MCP Registry API specification with PulseMCP-specific extensions for enriched m... - **Claude Desktop (MCP Host)** — Anthropic's Claude Desktop application was the first MCP host. Connects to local MCP servers via stdio transport defined in claude_desktop_config .json and to remote servers via... - **Cursor (MCP Host)** — Cursor IDE supports MCP servers as a first-class extension mechanism, configured via mcp.json. Cursor is one of the most widely used MCP hosts for code-related workflows. - **Visual Studio Code (MCP Host)** — VS Code's GitHub Copilot Chat integrates MCP servers as agents and tools. Microsoft has standardized on MCP for Copilot's agent-mode extensibility. - **ChatGPT (MCP Host)** — OpenAI's ChatGPT supports MCP through the Apps SDK and developer tooling documented at developers.openai.com, making MCP a cross-vendor surface for connecting tools and data to ... ## Security (2) - **Mcp Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC - **Mcp Vulnerability Disclosure** — security.txt · contact published ## Use cases (5) - **IDE Augmentation** — MCP servers extend coding assistants like Cursor, VS Code Copilot, and Claude Code with project-aware tools, repository search, and terminal/build access. - **Knowledge Base Access** — MCP resources surface documentation, wikis, and structured data stores to AI hosts under user consent. - **Workflow Automation** — MCP tools let agents trigger build pipelines, send notifications, create tickets, and orchestrate multi-step business workflows. - **Enterprise Connectors** — Vendors expose enterprise systems (CRMs, ITSM, data warehouses) as MCP servers so that any MCP-aware host can connect without bespoke integration code. - **Local Computer Use** — Local MCP servers expose filesystem, git, shell, browser, and desktop automation tools to assistants running on the same machine. ## Tags MCP, AI Agents, Tools, Resources, Prompts, JSON-RPC, Anthropic, Standards, Topic --- Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/mcp/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.