Introduction

Imagine a brilliant AI that knows everything about the world up to a certain date but cannot perform simple calculations or access your current calendar. In this lesson, you’ll explore the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standardized way to connect Large Language Models (LLMs) to external data and tools. You’ll move beyond the theory and gain hands-on experience by building your very first MCP server.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the core architecture of MCP, including hosts, clients, and servers
• Set up a modern Python development environment using uv and Claude Desktop
• Write and deploy an MCP server using the FastMCP framework
• Connect a local server to an AI host using secure tunnelling with ngrok

These skills will not only help you understand how to extend the capabilities of AI models but also equip you with the practical knowledge to build scalable integrations that can bridge the gap between AI and real-world data.