Model Context Protocol: Connecting AI to Your Tools

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Model Context Protocol: Connecting AI to Your Tools

Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standardized way for AIs to interact with tools. Released by Anthropic in November 2024, MCP is open-source.

People are building MCP servers that let your AI assistant actually do things—connect to your Figma and build designs for you, update your calendar, query databases, send emails, create reports from multiple data sets, build PowerPoints.

TL;DR

MCP lets AI assistants connect to tools and data sources through a standard protocol. Developers are building MCP servers for everything from Figma to calendars to databases. You can use existing MCP servers or build your own using simple templates and AI assistance.

If you're using AI tools like Claude Desktop or Claude Code, MCP makes them significantly more powerful. Instead of copying and pasting between apps, your AI can read and modify your Figma designs, access your Notion databases or Airtable bases, manage your Apple Reminders and automate shortcuts, search and update your calendar, connect to collaborative tools like Liveblocks, or control creative apps like Aseprite for pixel art.

Engineers like MCP because it eliminates the complexity of building one-off integrations. For vibecoders—people using AI tools without traditional engineering backgrounds—MCP means access to powerful capabilities that were previously locked behind custom code.

MCP Servers

The awesome-mcp-servers list showcases what's possible:

  • Figma - Let AI read and modify your designs
  • Notion/Airtable - Connect AI to your knowledge bases
  • Apple Shortcuts - Automate your Mac through conversation
  • Liveblocks - Manage collaborative spaces and comments
  • Carbon Voice - Voice messaging integration
  • Creative tools - Aseprite for pixel art, and more

You can use Claude to build one. Here's a copy-paste prompt to get started:

markdown
I want to build a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.
 
Clone or read the diff from this template repo: https://github.com/marthakelly/mcp-template
 
Then help me:
1. Understand the basic MCP structure
2. Decide what tool or data source to connect
3. Implement the server following the template pattern
4. Test it with Claude Desktop
 
Keep it simple - I want a working MCP server I can build on.

This prompt references a dead-simple template that removes the complexity of starting from scratch. You provide the idea, Claude handles the implementation.

Learning Resources

References