Model Context Protocol (MCP) for LLM Tool Integration › MCP Servers and Clients

MCP introduces two key components: **servers** and **clients**. ## MCP Servers MCP servers are simple web APIs that expose tools. Using FastMCP, you can set this up with very little code. You only need to annotate your functions with `@mcp.tool()` and FastMCP will handle exposing them as a server. You can run an MCP server locally or host it remotely. Below is an example configuration for running one from your local machine: ```json // mcpConfig.json { "mcpServers": { "stocks": { "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/uv", "args": [ "--directory", "/Users/michael/projects/stocks", "run", "stocks" ] } } } ``` ## MCP Clients This is where things become more interesting. An MCP client is an application like Cursor, Claude Desktop, or VS Code that can connect to one or more MCP servers. > Important note: When we talk about “clients” here, we are referring to local applications that connect to MCP servers. This is different from the traditional client-server architecture. In this context, the client is your development environment or agent interface that interacts with your own local or remote MCP setup.