MCP, and what it standardizes
By the end of today you can explain what problem the Model Context Protocol solves, describe its client and server roles, and say precisely what it standardizes and what it leaves entirely to you.
YesterdayOn Day 25 you learned an API contract is a promise others build on. MCP is that promise standardised for tools an AI can call.
TomorrowTomorrow you build one and meet the trust boundaries it creates.
Why this matters
MCP is the point where tool calling stops being bespoke wiring per application and becomes an interface others can implement. Understanding it as a protocol rather than a product is what makes it unremarkable in the right way.
- MCP
- MCP clients and servers
- Tools, resources and prompts
- A protocol is not a product
Learn it
70 minCopy this into Claude or ChatGPT. It quizzes you before it explains anything, which is deliberate. The resources under it are how you check what it told you.
Today's Master Prompt
Free · sign inA prompt written for this day alone: your level, the exact scope, what to leave out, and an instruction to quiz you before it explains anything. Paste it into Claude or ChatGPT and it teaches you today's material.
Check it against something that is not a model
An assistant can be fluent and wrong, and on a topic you met today you will not catch it. These cover the same ground and were made by people who do this for a living, so they are what you hold the explanation up against. They are other people's work and we only link to them, so judge them for yourself.
3 hand-picked resources
Free · sign inVideos, official docs and articles covering the same ground, each opened and annotated by hand. They are what you check the assistant against on a day you cannot yet catch it being wrong.
Build it
45 minConnect an existing MCP server to a client and use its tools. Then read the server's source and map every part back to what you already know: where the tool definitions live, where the schemas are, and where execution happens. Write a paragraph on what the protocol added over defining those tools directly in your agent.
Recall it
25 minAnswer out loud, reveal, then mark honestly whether you had it. That score is the only thing on this page you do not get to choose.
5 recall questions
Free · sign inQuestions you answer from memory, then grade yourself against the real answer. The score is carried into the mastery rating below it, so an honest miss cannot quietly become a tick.
Rate it
Completion and mastery are tracked separately. Be honest, because an inflated rating only means the concept resurfaces sooner.
Mastery tracking
Free · sign inRate yourself against five named criteria per concept. Completion and mastery are tracked separately, and anything you rate shakily comes back automatically on a spaced schedule.
Recap
- 01MCP answers combinatorial integration, and nothing about it is AI-specific
- 02The server is ordinary software; the client lives in the AI application
- 03Tools do things, resources are things, prompts are templates
- 04It standardises the interface and makes nothing safe by itself
Your progress
Free · sign inMark days complete, pick up where you left off across devices, and watch completion and mastery diverge. Free, and the account exists only so ninety days of work cannot vanish with a cleared browser.