The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open protocol developed by Anthropic that standardizes how AI clients communicate with external services, tools, and data sources. MCP defines a structured way for AI assistants to discover available tools, understand their parameters, and invoke them through a consistent interface.
For coding agents, MCP enables integration with GitHub, Slack, Linear, Jira, databases, and custom internal tools without building bespoke connectors for each. An MCP-enabled agent can query a database, create a Jira ticket, and push code to GitHub using the same protocol.
MCP support varies across tools. Cline was one of the first to implement it as a first-class feature. Claude Code supports it natively. Cursor added MCP support in 2025.