Lessons - MCP Academy

Featured Lessons

Article

Understanding Security in MCP

Security within the Model Context Protocol (MCP) presents a dual challenge. It requires addressing both traditional web vulnerabilities and a new class of threats specific to AI agents. As MCP standardizes how agents interact with external tools and data, it inevitably creates new attack surfaces that demand a comprehensive, defense-in-depth security strategy. Properly securing an …

Article

The Practical Guide to MCP Server Adoption

This framework helps you figure out whether MCP servers are right for your specific use case by systematically checking eight critical constraint categories. Each constraint gets scored, and the combined assessment guides your decision, a true compatibility test for you and MCP. The eight constraint categories What’s included in this framework Constraint assessment matrix For …

Article

The Agentic Intention Framework

Introduction: The paradox of building with AI in the loop As modern software engineers, we’re trained in the agile way: ship fast, iterate based on feedback, let design emerge. We start minimal and evolve based on what we learn from users. But architecting robust, performant, and useful MCP servers demands the opposite: with LLMs in …

Article

The Agentic Intention Framework In Practice

Overview: Who, what and why WHO will use the framework: WHAT are the components of the framework: A structured framework that transforms vague AI agent ideas into precise, measurable workflow definitions by eliciting explicit answers to critical questions before development begins: Framework constraints WHY use the framework: Achieve higher adoption rates for agentic tools and …

Video

Using MCP to Bridge AI Agents and Cloud Infrastructure

We spent a lot of the MCP Academy day focused on how MCP can help produce better apps. Adam Bell and Artur Laksberg from Pulumi shared a different use case, deploying and operating cloud infrastructure. Learn how MCP can help an agent upgrade runtimes, analyze dependencies and more.

Watch Now

Video

Developer-First Feature Management with MCP

If you want to put MCP servers to work, it’s helpful to understand how it can fit into your daily workflow. So, Alexander Lawrence from LaunchDarkly showed the audiencehow to use MCP servers to manage feature flags.

Watch Now

Article

Introduction: Terminology Matters

We’ve all seen articles about “an AI system”, but what does that actually mean? The raw LLM that generates text? The agent that makes decisions? The tools it calls? The infrastructure that makes it all work reliably? Without clear terminology, teams build brittle integrations, set wrong expectations, and misplace trust—expecting intelligence where there’s really just …

Article

AI System

An AI system is the comprehensive integration of components that collectively deliver artificial intelligence-powered functionality. It combines the generative capabilities of LLM, the reasoning and decision-making processes of agents, the action-enabling capabilities of tools, and the reliability mechanisms of the orchestration layer. Additional infrastructure components, such as integration layers, plugin frameworks, or standardized protocols like …

Article

AI Agent

An AI agent is a type of AI system that uses a LLM for reasoning and autonomously pursues goals by making decisions, invoking tools, and adapting to feedback. Agents add goal-directed behavior on top of raw model outputs, enabling systems to act in dynamic and flexible ways. Agents can use different mechanisms to access tools, …

Article

AI Tool

An AI tool is a capability beyond an LLM’s native text generation that an AI agent can invoke to access data, perform actions, or integrate with services. Tools can be connected in different ways: through direct API calls, plugin frameworks, or standardized protocols such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Key characteristics Also: A tool …