MCP (Model Context Protocol)

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open protocol developed by Anthropic that standardizes how AI agents connect to external tools, data sources, and services. MCP defines a common language that MCP clients (like Claude Code) use to communicate with MCP servers (like AgentRQ) — enabling a rich ecosystem of interoperable agent capabilities.

Why MCP Exists

Before MCP, every AI tool had to build custom integrations for every service it wanted to connect to. This created a fragmented ecosystem where each LLM provider and each tool had incompatible APIs.

MCP solves this with a standard protocol. A server built to the MCP spec works with any MCP-compatible client, and a client built to the MCP spec can use any MCP server — without custom code.

MCP Architecture

text

AI Agent (MCP Client)
        │
        │  MCP Protocol (JSON-RPC over stdio/SSE/HTTP)
        ▼
  MCP Server (e.g., AgentRQ)
        │
        ▼
  External Service / Tool

The protocol has three primitives:

→ Tools — Functions the agent can call (e.g., AgentRQ's task and memory)
→ Resources — Data sources the agent can read (e.g., files, databases)
→ Prompts — Reusable prompt templates the server exposes

MCP and AgentRQ

AgentRQ is an MCP server. When you add AgentRQ to your Claude Code configuration, Claude Code becomes an MCP client that can call AgentRQ's tools:

→ task — Create, get and update tasks on your task board, reply to the human or ask them a question, and fetch attachments
→ memory — Load, save and delete notes that outlive a task
→ skills — Search, load, save and delete the workspace's skills
→ workspace — Get workspace configuration and context, and publish events
→ siteTools — Search and call the tools of websites shared from Chrome
→ pano — Shared markdown docs across the account's workspaces
→ help — Show every tool's actions, and each action's payload with an example

Each tool takes an action and a payload, for example task {"action": "reply", "payload": {"taskId": "…", "text": "Done!"}}. The older one-tool-per-action names (createTask, getTask, updateTaskStatus and so on) still work for clients that are already installed.

MCP Transport Options

Transport	Description
stdio	Local server, communicates over stdin/stdout
HTTP + SSE	Remote server, uses HTTP for requests and SSE for streaming

AgentRQ uses HTTP + SSE transport, enabling real-time notifications from anywhere.

Related Terms

→ MCP Client
→ MCP Server
→ MCP Tool
→ SSE
→ Claude Code