Model Context Protocol (MCP) Foundation is a two-day, hands-on course for teams building agentic AI systems. It shows how clients and servers exchange tools, resources, prompts, and request metadata without transport-bound sessions. Attendees compare MCP with direct APIs, plugins, RAG, and A2A-style communication. A first lab makes the protocol concrete with a simple stdio-based client and server.
From there, the class builds clients that discover server capabilities when needed, invoke tools, and read resources. It then flips to the server side, designing tool schemas and resource interfaces and mapping local files, APIs, databases, and services into working capabilities. Day one closes by wrapping REST, GraphQL, database, and SaaS APIs as tools. Along the way, attendees handle authentication, rate limits, pagination, and partial failures.
Day two turns to production practices, starting with trust boundaries, authorization, and least privilege. It also covers the prompt injection, tool poisoning, and data leakage risks specific to tool-calling systems. A lab reinforces the lesson by adding authentication and approval controls. Next, attendees work with the stateless protocol model: each request supplies its version, client information, and capabilities. They use optional discovery, request-scoped interaction, and explicit handles for application state rather than hidden transport sessions.
A debugging, testing, and observability module covers request metadata, version compatibility, tool schemas, and edge cases. It also covers logging, tracing, and audit events. The course finishes with architecture and integration strategy. It examines stateless, load-balanced deployments, cacheable capability catalogs, and how MCP fits alongside RAG, agent frameworks, and CI/CD workflows. A closing lab explores production integration architecture.
Who Should Attend
Developers, Data Engineers, Dev/AI/Sec/Platform/Ops, IT Staff, Technical Managers and Architects
What Attendees Will Learn
Upon completing Model Context Protocol (MCP) Foundation, participants will be able to:
- Explain the purpose, architecture, and core concepts of Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Build stateless MCP clients and servers that expose tools, resources, and prompts
- Connect agentic applications to external data, APIs, and operational systems through MCP
- Apply per-request metadata, optional discovery, and transport practices for MCP systems
- Apply security, authorization, approvals, and explicit application-state patterns for MCP integrations
- Debug, test, observe, and harden MCP clients and servers for production use
- Evaluate where MCP fits alongside APIs, RAG, A2A-style communication, and agent frameworks
- Design practical MCP integrations for enterprise and developer workflows
Prerequisites
Participants should have programming skills, preferably in Python or JavaScript, and basic familiarity with LLM applications, APIs, and command-line development.