Learn MCP by poking at it.

mcpexplained is a series of short, interactive essays about the Model Context Protocol. No videos and no jargon walls. Small machines you can click, sitting in short prose.

The reference

• A guide to MCP→

  Every concept, split the way the protocol is: server on one side, agent on the other. Methods, facts, spec links, and a runnable demo each.

  8 interactive figures · kept current · updated August 25, 2026

Essays

• Who can talk to whom?→

  MCP is a story about access: apps that have to ask, servers that stay strangers, and one agent holding the keys. Five machines let you click through the boundaries.

  10 min · 5 machines · August 25, 2026

• Sessions are gone. Now what?

  MCP deleted protocol sessions. A short tour of state handles, the small IDs that replaced them.

  in the works

• The task that outlived the request

  What happens when the work takes twenty minutes and the connection doesn't.

  in the works