// Handbook
The MCP Handbook
A practical introduction to the Model Context Protocol
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0
Start reading →Table of contents
- 1. Chapter 1: Introduction
- 2. Chapter 2: How LLMs Communicate
- 3. Chapter 3: Minimal MCP (Stdio)
- 4. Chapter 4: Tools - The Hands of the Model
- 5. Chapter 5: Resources - The Memory of the Model
- 6. Chapter 6: Prompts - Instructions and Templates
- 7. Chapter 7: The Power of Combination - Multi-Server Orchestration
- 8. Chapter 8: The Tool Trap - Problems with Too Many Tools
- 9. Chapter 9: Return Values - From Text to Structured Data
- 10. Chapter 10: Binary Data - When the AI Sends Images
- 11. Chapter 11: Real-Time Feedback & Cancellation - Interactive Tools
- 12. Chapter 12: The Limits of AI - Model Constraints and Context Overflow
- 13. Chapter 13: The Artifact Pattern - Bridging Model Limits and User Experience
- 14. Chapter 14: Quality Assurance – The Server Inspector & Quality Scoring
- 15. Chapter 15: Automation & CI/CD
- 16. Chapter 16: Transports in Detail – stdio and Streamable HTTP
- 17. Chapter 17: Security & Authentication - OAuth 2.1 for Remote Servers
- 18. Chapter 18: Extensions - Notifications (Push Messages)
- 19. Chapter 19: Tasks – Long-Running Operations & Asynchrony (Tasks Extension, SEP-2663)
- 20. Chapter 20: Agentic Servers & Sampling - When the Server Asks the AI
- 21. Chapter 21: User Queries & Elicitation - Human-in-the-Loop
- 22. Chapter 22: Choosing the Right Programming Language for MCP Servers
- 23. Chapter 23: Agent Skills – Modular Expert Knowledge & "Skills over MCP"
- 24. Chapter 24: Glossary - The Language of MCP
- 25. The MCP Handbook – Table of Contents