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Core
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
MCP is an open client-server standard that lets an agent connect to external tools, data, and prompts through a uniform interface, so one integration works across many hosts instead of writing bespoke glue per model. Servers expose tools, resources, and prompts with typed schemas; clients discover and call them at runtime. Applied AI interviews probe it because integration plumbing, not model quality, is usually what blocks an agent from shipping.
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TAUGHT IN THESE COURSES
This concept is a reference. These lessons put it in sequence, with what comes before and after it.
Agent Engineering·Tools as an interfaceFree14mDesigning an API for a consumer that cannot read the docsA tool set is an API whose only user is a model with no memory of your codebase and no way to ask. That constraint changes granularity, naming and error design in specific ways, and most tool sets are built as though a person were reading them.Agent Engineering·The ecosystem you will be asked aboutPremium13mStandardising how an agent reaches its toolsBefore a protocol layer existed, every team wrote the same adapter between their agent and every tool it used, N times over. What a tool protocol standardises, what it deliberately does not, and why a shared tool surface moves the trust problem rather than solving it.
RELATED CONCEPTS
PRACTICE THIS IN REAL QUESTIONS
RAG & Agent System DesignWhat is the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and how do you design good tools for an agent?→RAG & Agent System DesignBeyond basic tools, what advanced MCP patterns matter: resources, prompts, sampling, and roots?→RAG & Agent System DesignYour agent has many tools but keeps picking the wrong one or passing wrong parameters. How do you fix it?→RAG & Agent System DesignWhat is 'harness engineering' for AI agents, and why does the scaffolding matter as much as the model?→LLM & GenAI FundamentalsHow does LLM tool calling (function calling) actually work under the hood?→RAG & Agent System DesignBuild a customer-support agent over a fake product/SQL database: tool-calling, retrieval, and a control loop.→
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