Agent Systems · core
MCP & Integrations
Model Context Protocol hosts, clients, servers, tools, resources, prompts, transports, capability negotiation, and trust.
Mental model
MCP standardizes how an AI host discovers and invokes external capabilities. The protocol boundary does not replace authentication, authorization, validation, or user approval.
How to study MCP & Integrations
Begin by restating the mental model in your own words, then connect it to a concrete system you have built or operated. Name the mechanism, the constraint it addresses, and the trade-off it introduces. Use Code execution with MCP: building more efficient AI agents, MCP Safety Audit: LLMs with the Model Context Protocol Allow Major Security Exploits, Model Context Protocol (MCP): Landscape, Security Threats, and Future Research Directions to check details, but close the source before writing your explanation. Retrieval is the learning step; rereading is only preparation.
Next, compare MCP & Integrations with Agent Memory & Context Management, Multi-agent Coordination. Ask what changes in correctness, latency, resource use, operability, and failure recovery. Complete Design exercise: MCP & Integrations and preserve the command, input, output, and one failed attempt as evidence. Finish by explaining the idea without jargon to someone who has not studied the track.
Proof of understanding
- Explain the mechanism from first principles and identify the state it reads or changes.
- Give one situation where the concept is the right choice and one where it is not.
- Predict a realistic failure mode before running the drill, then compare the prediction with evidence.
- Connect the result to a roadmap or build artifact instead of treating the concept as isolated trivia.
Learn from primary sources
- Code execution with MCP: building more efficient AI agents (doc)
- MCP Safety Audit: LLMs with the Model Context Protocol Allow Major Security Exploits (doc)
- Model Context Protocol (MCP): Landscape, Security Threats, and Future Research Directions (paper)
- Introducing the Model Context Protocol (Anthropic) (article)
- Model Context Protocol Specification (doc)
Practice and explain it back
Design exercise: MCP & Integrations
Model Context Protocol hosts, clients, servers, tools, resources, prompts, transports, capability negotiation, and trust. Implement designOutline() returning non-empty values for: capabilities, transport, trustBoundary. Each value must name a concrete mechanism or decision.
Expected evidence: A design outline with capabilities, transport, trustBoundary plus an explicit failure mode or trade-off.
Open the interactive drill →Review prompts
- MCP standardises how a host discovers and calls tools. Name what it deliberately does not give you.
Build evidence
Synthesize: Agent Systems
Engineer useful agents with bounded loops, tools, memory, protocols, durability, permissions, and long-running control. Produce one working system, benchmark, or evidence-backed design that integrates the path.
- Implements or precisely models the core mechanisms from all three milestones
- Includes at least one injected failure or adversarial case and demonstrates recovery
- Reports quality, latency, resource, reliability, or usability measurements relevant to the domain
- Ships a concise architecture note explaining decisions, trade-offs, and remaining risks