Model Context Protocol · L2 · 15 min
Transports
Learn in five minutes
- A transport carries the protocol messages.
- Local stdio and network transports are different trust stories.
- A local process is not automatically safe, but it is a different boundary than a public port.
- Confirm which transports the revision you read actually specifies.
- Do not open a port in this lab.
The paper exercise uses stdio words only: the host starts a process, talks on its streams, and stops it. No address, no port.
Visual
Stay on the machine
- Write 'stdio' on the arrow.
- Do not write a host name or a port.
- The stop step kills the process in the story.
- Add 'confirm the transport list in the spec'.
Quiz
Ecosystem
- Transport
- How the bytes of the protocol move.
Sisters: Plugins, Function calling, Language-server ideas.
A notes server can serve chat and a voice host if both speak the same protocol.
Treat the spec revision as something you pin, like a model id.
Config
- Write the goal in one sentence.
- Name the input and the allowed output.
- Save the trace next to the result.
Troubleshooting
- The answer looks fluent and is wrong. Check whether a source passage actually contains the claim.
- The loop never stops. Set a step cap and stop when the tool result repeats.
Sources and go deeper
- Model Context Protocol specification, 2025-06-18 spec last checked 2026-10
- What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)? spec last checked 2026-10
- RFC 9110, HTTP Semantics spec last checked 2026-10
- Model Context Protocol — Wikipedia wikipedia last checked 2026-10
- HTTP — Wikipedia wikipedia last checked 2026-10