MCP explained simply: what it changes for devs

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open protocol developed by Anthropic that allows Claude to interact with external tools and services in a standardized way. Here’s why it’s a paradigm shift.

The problem it solves

Before MCP, connecting Claude to an external service meant rewriting the same plumbing for every project. Verbose, custom, non-reusable.

What MCP changes

MCP standardizes the interface between Claude and external tools. An MCP server exposes tools that Claude can call natively — without you having to manage the plumbing.

Client → MCP Server → Tool/Service
           ↑
       Claude decides
       when and how
       to call it

A concrete example

You want Claude to read and create tasks in your project system. With MCP:

1. You create an MCP server exposing 3 tools: list_tasks, get_task, create_task
2. You connect it to your Claude client
3. Claude can now call these tools in conversation

The open source ecosystem

The community has already created hundreds of MCP servers for common tools: GitHub, Notion, Google Drive, SQL databases, REST APIs, file systems…

Find them at github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers.

For POs and managers

MCP changes how you think about agents. Instead of asking “how can Claude access X?”, the question becomes “which MCP server exposes X?” — often, someone has already done it.

What I take away

MCP isn’t revolutionary in concept — tool calls existed before. What changes is standardization: an MCP server written once works with all compatible MCP clients.