{"id":"concept:model-context-protocol","kind":"concept","label":"Model Context Protocol","synonyms":["MCP"],"definition":"Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open standard that lets an AI assistant connect to an application's real functionality through a defined set of named tools, instead of only being able to chat about the application.","summary":"The open standard behind \"let my AI do my bookkeeping.\" Any MCP-compatible assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or others — can connect to BalanceMCP's nineteen tools through it, each one a narrow, specifically named action rather than open database access.","explanation":["The Model Context Protocol is an open standard, published by Anthropic in late 2024, that describes how an AI application connects to an external tool: how it discovers what tools exist, what arguments each one takes, and how to call them. It is a wire format and a handshake, nothing more.","Its value is that it is not per-vendor. Before it, connecting an assistant to a piece of software meant that assistant's makers writing an integration for it, so a small product waited to be noticed. Under MCP the software describes itself once and any compliant client can drive it, which reverses who has to do the work.","What the protocol deliberately does not supply: authentication policy, a permission model, an audit trail, or any guarantee about what a tool does once called. Those are properties of the server on the other end. \"It speaks MCP\" is a statement about connectivity and says nothing about safety.","The pieces are named separately — a server exposes tools, a client connects to servers, a tool is one callable operation — and confusing the server with the client is the most common early mistake."],"commonMistakes":["Assuming MCP is specific to one assistant — it's an open standard, and any compatible client can connect to any compatible server.","Assuming a connected assistant has open-ended database access rather than a fixed menu of narrowly scoped tools.","Assuming an AI's answer about \"your books\" is verified against real data unless it's actually connected through something like MCP — otherwise it's working from whatever was described to it."],"category":"ai-mcp","questions":[{"question":"Is MCP specific to Claude?","answer":"No — it's an open standard. Any assistant that implements it, including others besides Claude, can connect to an MCP-compatible ledger the same way."},{"question":"Is connecting an AI through MCP the same as giving it my login credentials?","answer":"No — it connects through a scoped API key tied to a fixed set of named tools, not raw database or account access. The assistant can only do what those specific tools allow."}],"url":"/glossary/model-context-protocol","relatedTo":[{"id":"concept:mcp-server","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Amcp-server"},{"id":"concept:mcp-client","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Amcp-client"},{"id":"concept:mcp-tool","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Amcp-tool"},{"id":"concept:api-key","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Aapi-key"},{"id":"concept:tenant-isolation","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Atenant-isolation"},{"id":"concept:ai-bookkeeping","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Aai-bookkeeping"},{"id":"guide:what-is-mcp","relationship":"references","weight":0.7,"api":"/api/knowledge/guide%3Awhat-is-mcp"},{"id":"category:ai-bookkeeping","relationship":"references","weight":0.7,"api":"/api/knowledge/category%3Aai-bookkeeping"}],"referencedBy":[{"id":"concept:mcp-server","label":"MCP Server","url":"/glossary/mcp-server"},{"id":"concept:mcp-client","label":"MCP Client","url":"/glossary/mcp-client"},{"id":"concept:mcp-tool","label":"MCP Tool","url":"/glossary/mcp-tool"},{"id":"concept:ai-bookkeeping","label":"AI Bookkeeping","url":"/glossary/ai-bookkeeping"},{"id":"topic:mcp","label":"What an accounting MCP server actually is","url":"/accounting-for-ai/mcp"}],"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"BalanceMCP — https://balancemcp.com"}